Memento push and pop for Backbone.js models and collections structures.
A view may offer some editing capabilities that directly modify a structure (model or collection), directly. If you want to cancel the changes after they have already been applied to the structure, you will have to make a round trip to the back-end server or other origin of the structures's data to do so.
With the memento pattern and the Backbone.Memento plugin, you do not need to make any round trips.
It's easy to get up and running. You only need to have Backbone (including underscore.js - a requirement for Backbone) in your page before including the backbone.memento plugin.
- Backbone.js v0.5.3, v0.9.0, or higher
This plugin is built and tested against Backbone v0.9.0 but should run against most
versions of Backbone, as it only uses functionality built into the Backbone structures.
Namely, it uses the set
and unset
methods of models and reset
and remove
of collections.
Download the backbone.memento.js
file from this github repository and copy it into
your javascripts folder. Add the needed <script>
tag to bring the plugin into any page
that wishes to use it. Be sure to include the modelbinding file after the backbone.js file.
Your models must make use of the Backbone.Memento object, directly. This can easily be done in multiple ways
You can tell a model instance to extend a memento instance. This will provide all of the memento methods directly on the model.
SomeModel = Backbone.Model.extend({
initialize: function(){
var memento = new Backbone.Memento(this);
_.extend(this, memento);
}
});
You can also configure a model by instantiating the memento with your model's initializer and then providing access to the methods as needed, or by using the methods internally.
SomeModel = Backbone.Model.extend({
initialize: function(){
this.memento = new Backbone.Memento(this);
this.restart = this.memento.restart;
},
someAppMethod: function(){
this.memento.set();
},
moreAppMethod: function(){
this.memento.store();
// ... do stuff here
// ... then restart it if needed
this.memento.restore();
}
});
This gives you more control over where the memento methods can be used.
Memento has been recently upgraded to support collections and saving state of the models under the hood. This will greatly assist with filtering collections temporarily.
Note the use of reset intead of set.
SomeCollection = Backbone.Collection.extend({
initialize: function() {
_.extend(this, new Backbone.Memento(this));
}
});
var someCollection = new SomeCollection();
someCollection.reset({something: "whatever"});
someCollection.store();
someCollection.reset({something: "a change"});
someCollection.restore();
someCollection.at(0).get("something"); //=> "whatever"
There are several methods provided by Backbone.Memento, to allow you more control over how the memento object works, and when.
This method creates a copy of your structure's current state, as a memento, and stores it in a stack (first in, last out).
This method takes the previously stored state, and restores your structure to this state. You
can call this as many times as you have called store
. Calling this method more times
than you have called store will result in a no-operation and your structure will not be
changed.
This method effectively rolls your structure back to the first store point, no matter how many times it has been stored in the memento.
(reset
was deprecated since it has a naming conflict with Backbone.Collections.prototype.reset.)
There is only one item of configuration for Backbone.Memento at the moment:
There are some scenarios where it may cause issues to have all attributes restored from a previous state, for a model. In this case, you can ignore specific attributes for the model.
You can configure the memento to ignore the attributes when instantiating the memento:
SomeModel = Backbone.Model.extend({
initialize: function(){
_.extend(this, new Backbone.Memento(this, {
ignore: ["something", "another", "whatever", "..."]
});
},
// ...
});
var someModel = new SomeModel();
someModel.set({something: "whatever"});
someModel.store();
someModel.set({something: "a change"});
someModel.restore();
someModel.get("something"); //=> "a change"
Alternatively, you can override the pre-configured ignored attributes by passing an
ignore
array into the restore
method:
SomeModel = Backbone.Model.extend({
initialize: function(){
this.memento = new Backbone.Memento(this);
},
// ...
});
var someModel = new SomeModel();
someModel.set({something: "whatever"});
someModel.store();
someModel.set({something: "a change"});
someModel.restore({ignore: ["something"]});
someModel.get("something"); //=> "a change"
Note that passing an ignore
array into the restore
method will override the pre-configured
ignore list.
With this in place, you can push your model's state onto the memento stack by calling
store
, and pop the previously stored state back into the model (destroying the current
state in the process) by calling restore
.
myModel = new SomeModel();
myModel.set({foo: "bar"});
myModel.store();
myModel.set({foo: "a change"});
myModel.restore();
myModel.get("foo"); // => "bar"
Backbone.Memento will set and unset attributes, when poping from the memento stack. For example, if you add an attribute after storing your models state, and then later restore back to the previous state, the attribute that you added will be unset. The unset attribute will have it's change event fired, as well.
myModel = new SomeModel();
myModel.set({foo: "stuff"});
myModel.store();
myModel.set({bar: "a new attribute"});
myModel.bind("change:bar", function(model, value){
alert('bar was changed to: ' + val);
}
myModel.restore(); // => causes an alert box to say "bar was changed to undefined"
myModel.get("bar"); // => undefined, as the attribute does not exist
- via github.com/stayradiated
- Setup library as an NPM package
- Tests are now run with Mocha and Chai (instead of Jasmine)
- Added UMD returnExports wrapper
- Removed jQuery as a dependency
- via github.com/boskee
- Added public method changes(), which compares the current state to the previous state
- Added public method previousState(), which returns the previous state's attributes
- Updated Backbone to v1.2.*
- Updated Underscore to v1.8.*
- No code changes were made. This release is for library upgrades only, for testing purposes
- Updated Backbone to v0.9.0
- Updated Underscore to v1.3.1
- Updated jQuery to v1.7.1
- Fixed global scope leak for a variable
- Breaking Change: Removed the
reset
method in favor ofrestart
- Majore rewrite of the internal code
- Produced screencast showing refacoring of this project: http://watchmecode.net/refactoring-javascript
- Blogged some additional info on refactoring this project: http://lostechies.com/derickbailey/2011/10/25/rebuilding-my-backbone-js-plugins-with-modules-srp-and-more/
- changed the public memento API to support collections
- updated documentation to reflect changes
- changed the public memento API and how a model is connected to the memento
- changed the name of the 'clear' method to 'restart', to prevent hijacking the model's clear method
- updated the documentation to include better examples and more detail
- ability to ignore model attributes - they won't be stored or restored
- Fixed a small bug with rolling back more times than had been saved
- Added ability to
restart
a model, moving back to the beginning of the memento stack - Fixed a few bugs in the removing of old attributes, related to global variables, etc
- Code cleanup and switching to a standard object constructor function instead of return an object literal
- Initial releases with a few minor bug fixes
Copyright (c) 2011 Derick Bailey, Muted Solutions, LLC
Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:
The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.
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