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Common Marionette Concepts

This document covers the basic usage patterns and concepts across Marionette. This includes things like calling conventions, setting attributes, common option patterns etc.

Documentation Index

Using ES6 Modules

Marionette still supports using the library via an inline script.

<script src="./backbone.marionette.js"></script>
<script>new Marionette.View({ el: 'body' });</script>

The recommended solution is to choose a solution like a package manager to allow for ES6 module importing of the library. The best way to import is using name imports.

import { View } from 'backbone.marionette';
import * as Mn from 'backbone.marionette';

new View({ el: 'body' });
new Mn.Application();

However to support backwards compatibility Marionette exports all of its classes and functions on a default object. This default export may be removed in a future version of Marionette and it is recommend to migrate to a named imports.

import Marionette from 'backbone.marionette';

new Marionette.Application();

Class-based Inheritance

Like Backbone, Marionette utilizes the _.extend function to simulate class-based inheritance. All built-in classes, such as Marionette.View, Marionette.MnObject and everything that extend these provide an extend method for just this purpose.

In the example below, we create a new pseudo-class called MyView:

import { View } from 'backbone.marionette';

const MyView = View.extend({});

You can now create instances of MyView with JavaScript's new keyword:

const view = new MyView();

Value Attributes

When we extend classes, we can provide class attributes with specific values by defining them in the object we pass as the extend parameter:

import { View } from 'backbone.marionette';

const MyView = View.extend({
  className: 'bg-success',

  template: '#template-identifier',

  regions: {
    myRegion: '.my-region'
  },

  modelEvents: {
    change: 'removeBackground'
  },

  removeBackground() {
    this.$el.removeClass('bg-success');
  }
});

Live example

When we instantiate MyView, each instance will be given a .bg-success class with a myRegion region created on the .my-region element.

Functions Returning Values

In almost every instance where we can set a value, we can also assign a function to figure out the value at runtime. In this case, Marionette will run the function on instantiation and use the returned value:

import { View } from 'backbone.marionette';

const MyView = View.extend({
  className() {
    return this.model.successful() ? 'bg-success' : 'bg-error';
  },

  template: '#template-identifier',

  regions() {
    return {
      myRegion: '.my-region'
    };
  },

  modelEvents() {
    const wasSuccessful = this.model.successful();
    return {
      change: wasSuccessful ? 'removeBackground' : 'alert'
    };
  },

  removeBackground() {
    this.$el.removeClass('bg-success');
  },

  alert() {
    console.log('model changed');
  }
});

Live example

As we can see, almost all of the attributes here can be worked out dynamically. In most cases, Marionette will call the function once at instantiation, or first render, and preserve the value throughout the lifetime of the View. There are some exceptions to this rule - these will be referred to with their respective documentation.

Function Context

When using functions to set attributes, Marionette will assign the instance of your new class as this. You can use this feature to ensure you're able to access your object in cases where this isn't what you might expect it to be.

Binding Attributes on Instantiation

In Marionette, most attributes can be bound on class instantiation in addition to being set when the class is defined. You can use this to bind events, triggers, models, and collections at runtime:

import { View } from 'backbone.marionette';

const MyView = View.extend({
  template: '#template-identifier'
});

const myView = new MyView({
  triggers: {
    'click a': 'show:link'
  }
});

This will set a trigger called show:link that will be fired whenever the user clicks an <a> inside the view.

Options set here will override options set on class definition. So, for example:

import { View } from 'backbone.marionette';

const MyView = View.extend({
  template: '#template-identifier',

  triggers: {
    'click @ui.save': 'save:form'
  }
});

const myView = new MyView({
  triggers: {
    'click a': 'show:link'
  }
});

In this example, the trigger for save:form will no longer be fired, as the trigger for show:link completely overrides it.

Setting Options

Marionette can set options when you instantiate a class. This lets you override many class-based attributes when you need to. You can also pass new information specific to the object in question that it can access through special helper methods.

import { View } from 'backbone.marionette';

const MyView = View.extend({
  checkOption() {
    console.log(this.getOption('foo'));
  }
});

const view = new MyView({
  foo: 'some text'
});

view.checkOption();  // prints 'some text'

Live example

Common Marionette Functionality

Marionette has a few methods and core functionality that are common to all classes.

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