Backbone.Siren

A client side adapter that converts resource representations from Siren JSON to Backbone Models and Collections.

Basic Use

To use Backbone.Siren:

bbSirenModel = new Backbone.Siren.Model(sirenObject);
// or
bbSirenCollection = new Backbone.Siren.Collection(sirenObject);

Or, you can just point Backbone.Siren to a url that returns a Siren resource and let it do the rest:

Backbone.Siren.resolve('http://my.api.io/user/123');

If you're building an app that uses a Siren API on the backend:

var sirenApi = new Backbone.Siren('http://my.api.io');

// Request particular endpoints.  In this case `http://my.api.io/user/123` and `http://my.api.io/basket/111`
sirenApi.resolve('user/123').done(function (userModel) {});
sirenApi.resolve('basket/111').done(function (basketModel) {});

// Or
userModel = sirenApi.resolve(['user/123', 'basket/111']).done(function (userModel, basketModel) {});

Example

var sirenApi = new Backbone.Siren('http://my.api.io');

var UserView = Backbone.View.extend({

	template: _.template(...)

	, render: function() {
		this.$el.html(this.template(this.model.attributes));
		return this;
	}

	, initialize: function () {
		var self = this;

		sirenApi.resolve('user/123').done(function (userModel) {
			self.model  = userModel;
			self.render();
		});
	}
});

var userView = new UserView();

Options

{
    autoFetch: 'linked'   // Will automatically fetch sub-entities if enabled. Can be set to 'linked' or 'all'.
    , forceFetch: false  //  @todo
}

Backbone.Siren.FormView

Siren allows you to declare what "actions" your can be taken on a model. Backbone.Siren provides a simple way to render a form for one of these actions.

Backbone.Siren.FormView will generate a default form if passed a bbSiren Model (does not work with bbSiren Collections).

The methods .template() and .render() can be overwritten to customize the look of your form. You can also overwrite the .handleFormSubmit() and .formElementChange() methods which will, by default, submit the form and set model attributes respectively.

FormView Example

Generates a form that will execute the updateUser action when the .submitButton is clicked.

var UpdateUserFormView = Backbone.Siren.FormView.extend({

	event: {
        'click .submitButton': this.action.execute()
	}

	, initialize: function () {
        var self = this
        , updateUserAction = accountModel.getActionByName('updateUser');

	    qi.sirenApi.resolve('user/123').done(function (userModel) {
			self.initializeForm({action: updateUserAction});
			self.render();
        });
	}
});

var updateUserFormView = new UpdateUserFormView();

FormView Options

{
    action: bbSirenAction       // Required, a bbSiren Action.
    , validateOnChange: true    // Optional, Whether or not to validate ui changes.  Default is true
    , formAttributes: {}        // Optional, A mapping of html attribute properties to their values
    , fieldAttributes: {}       // Optional, A mapping of field names to html attribute properties
}

Changelog

0.3.0

• .resolve() now accepts an array of urls (#21)
• You can now have multiple store instances
• new Backbone.Siren() will now create a new API client instance with its own store (#22)
• Collections and partial entities are now cached in the store (#19 and #35)
• Request promises are now removed from the store once a request is fulfilled. (#35)
• Entity filtering via .entities() is now done using class instead of classname
• dropped the ability to filter links by rel when calling .links()
• dropped the ability filter actions when calling .actions()
• Improved test coverage
• Other bug fixes