backbone.hypermedia

Backbone plugin providing support for following hypermedia controls from Backbone models and collections.

Basic Usage

Assuming a resource with a links property, something like this:

{
	"name": {
		"first" : "Joe",
		"last": "Bloggs"
    },
    "links" : [
    	{ "rel": "country", "href": "/countries/GB" }
    ]
}

Define a corresponding Backbone model by extending Backbone.HypermediaModel (instead of Backbone.Model):

var User = Backbone.HypermediaModel.extend({
   ...
});

Then define a links property for the model like this:

links: {
	'country': Country,
	'timezone': TimeZone
}

Each key corresponds to the rel value of a link which may be present when the model is fetched from the server. The value defines the type of Backbone model you would like to be constructed based on that relation, so in this example Country and TimeZone are Backbone models (which must themselves extend Backbone.HypermediaModel).

Backbone.HypermediaModel overrides fetch so that for each link found in the response, if there is a corresponding value in the links property on your model, then the related model will also be fetched and a property added to your model under the same key. The return value of fetch is a promise which represents the collective fetch operations for the model and all related resources.

By using the promise returned from fetch you can wait until all related resources are fetched before rendering your view:

user.fetch().then(function () {
	// show user view
});

You can also add a links property to each related resource and have those relations followed as well, if you need to.

toJSON will include any related models which have been added to your model as properties.

Installation

Bower

bower install backbone-hypermedia

npm

npm install backbone-hypermedia

NuGet

Install-Package backbone.hypermedia

Publishing

Prior to publishing a new version of the package, you must run the following commands to configure your NuGet and npm credentials. You should only need to do this once.

npm adduser
grunt nugetkey --key=XXXXXXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXXXXXXXXXX

Once you have entered your credentials, you will have to get yourself added as a maintainer to both nuget and npm. Then you can publish to npm and NuGet by running one of the following tasks:

grunt publish:patch

Increments patch version in package.json, publishes to npm and NuGet. A short-hand command is grunt publish.

grunt publish:minor

As before, but bumps minor version.

grunt publish:major

As before, but bumps major version.

The publish task will create an appropriate semver tag which Bower will detect as a new version.

Contributors

• Sandy Cormie
• Jim Liddell
• Richard Phillips
• Barry Williams
• Henry Wilson