Marionette.Object

A base class which other classes can extend from. Object incorporates many backbone conventions and utilities like initialize and Backbone.Events.

Documentation Index

• initialize
• events
• Destroying An Object
• getOption
• bindEntityEvents
• Basic Use

Initialize

Initialize is called immediately after the Object has been instantiated, and is invoked with the same arguments that the constructor received.

var Friend = Marionette.Object.extend({
  initialize: function(options){
    console.log(options.name);
  }
});

new Friend({name: 'John'});

Events

Marionette.Object extends Backbone.Events and includes triggerMethod. This makes it easy for Objects to emit events that other objects can listen for with on or listenTo.

var Friend = Marionette.Object.extend({
  graduate: function() {
    this.triggerMethod('announce', 'I graduated!!!');
  }
});

var john = new Friend({name: 'John'});

john.on('announce', function(message) {
  console.log(message); // I graduated!!!
})

john.graduate();

getOption

Retrieve an object's attribute either directly from the object, or from the object's this.options, with this.options taking precedence.

More information getOption.

bindEntityEvents

Helps bind a backbone "entity" to methods on a target object. More information bindEntityEvents.

Destroying A Object

Objects have a destroy method that unbind the events that are directly attached to the instance.

Invoking the destroy method will trigger a "before:destroy" event and corresponding onBeforeDestroy method call. These calls will be passed any arguments destroy was invoked with.

// define a object with an onDestroy method
var MyObject = Marionette.Object.extend({

  onBeforeDestroy: function(arg1, arg2){
    // put custom code here, to destroy this object
  }

});

// create a new object instance
var obj = new MyObject();

// add some event handlers
obj.on("before:destroy", function(arg1, arg2){ ... });
obj.listenTo(something, "bar", function(){...});

// destroy the object: unbind all of the
// event handlers, trigger the "destroy" event and
// call the onDestroy method
obj.destroy(arg1, arg2);

Basic Use

Selections is a simple Object that manages a selection of things. Because Selections extends from Object, it gets initialize and Events for free.

var Selections = Marionette.Object.extend({

  initialize: function(options){
    this.selections = {};
  },

  select: function(key, item){
    this.triggerMethod("select", key, item);
    this.selections[key] = item;
  },

  deselect: function(key, item) {
    this.triggerMethod("deselect", key, item);
    delete this.selections[key];
  }

});

var selections = new Selections({
  filters: Filters
});

// use the built in EventBinder
selections.listenTo(selections, "select", function(key, item){
  console.log(item);
});

selections.select('toy', Truck);