Knockup

What happens when Knockout and Backbone are Ben Stone and Alison Scott. You'll need to decide who is who though.

Tested and works on

Chromium/Chrome 39.0.2171.65
Firefox 35.0.1
Internet Explorer 11.0.9600/11.0.15

Requirements

These are what knockup was developed with, older versions may work but have not been tested. Also please note that the development versions are the only ones tested with.

underscore 1.7.0
backbone 1.1.2
jQuery 1.11.2
knockout (dev/debug version) 3.2.0
knockout.mapping 2.4.1

Why?

You: What about Knockback or Epoxy if you like Knockout so much?

Me: Because. ...And I found Knockback and Epoxy to be obnoxious for my style. Granted my style could be really bad. Plus, CoffeeScript? Amirite? ~~Also, knockup itself is 9K un-minified and un-gziped, 5K minified and less than 2K min/gziped. It's smaller than Epoxy is minified.~~ I will allow knockup possibly being suckier and slower but I don't have benchmarks to prove it's not. It also does the most relaxing back-rubs.

The real reason is those other libraries didn't seem to handle nested objects well. Knockup does, every attribute and array contained within a model has two-way updates with knockout. So no matter where the model is updated.

So...how does it work and how I use it?

Pretty much like you would knockout for views and backbone for model management. I'm using the right terms, right? Frak it, lets do an exercise.

var viewmodel = new ku.Model({stuff: "I", want: "to track"});
viewmodel.set('awesomecharacters', new ku.Collection());

viewmodel.get('awesomecharacters').add([{name: "Batman"}, {name: "Abed"}, {name: "Troy"}, {name: "Inspector Spacetime"}]);

ku.applyBindings(viewmodel, $('#page'))

You: "That's neat and all, but what about syncing data (save & fetch)?"

Me: "Just use 'em?"

vm = new ku.Model();
rdata = ku.Model.extend({urlRoot: '/allabout', idAttribute: 'bass'})
somedata = new rdata({bass: 'notreble'});
vm.set('value', somedata);
ku.applyBindings(vm, $('#page')[0]);

somedata.fetch();

You: I need to know when stuff happens.

Me: That's not really a question. You can use Backbone's event system or Knockout's, but Backbone's is currently easier to access.

vm = new ku.Model({});
vm.on('change:dangerlvl', function() {
  if(vm.get('dangerlvl') > 0) alert('Danger Will Robinson! Danger!');
});
vm._ku().dangerlvl.subscribe(function(nv) {
  if(vm.get('dangerlvl') < 1) alert('Danger levels have dropped to an acceptable value.');
});

You: I've extended ku.Model, but my code fails.

Me: Have you executed the necesseary functions?

customModel = ku.Model.extend({
  //if constructor is overridden
  constructor: function(attrs, opts) {
    ku.Model.call(this, attrs, opts);
  },
  //if initialize is overridden
  initialize: function(attrs, opts) {
    ku.Model.prototype.initialize.call(this, attrs, opts);
  }
});

Got docs?

The only thing you need to know about Knockup is the following.

ku.Model, the base to all. Replace any Backbone.Model with this.
ku.Collection, same idea as ku.Model.
ku.applyBindings, pretty much the same as ko.applyBindings but use a ku.Model instead.
You could also use ko.applyBindings(viewmodel._ku, domelement) if you felt like punching yourself in the face.