Using jquery custom widgets with backbone.js views

Question

I have a custom jQuery widget that is being called from my app that uses backbone.js for MVC. How can I use the backbone events pattern in my custom jQuery widget?

function( $ ) {
  $.widget( "medex.chooser", {
  ...
  _create: function() {
      // Would I create a new backbone view here???
  }
}

Thanks.

Answer 1

I think you need to define a custom View that is then called by your custom widget.

In your app initialization code, for example:

APP = {};          // your app's global object
APP.Views = {};

APP.Views.WidgetView = Backbone.View.extend(
{
    events: {
        "click .grid1" : "onGrid1Click"
    },

    initialize: function() {
        // code here
    },

    onGrid1Click : function(evt) {
        // code here
    }
});

Then this will be the constructor code for your widget:

function Widget(element) {
   this.view = new APP.Views.WidgetView({ el: element });
}

This code might not be entirely valid, but should give you an idea of the structure you were looking for. Lemme know if this works for you.

Answer 2

If you're still looking for an answer, you could convert a widget into a view. The basic rules for converting from a Widget to a View are these:

• _create becomes initialize
• this.element becomes this.$el
• refresh becomes render
• destroy becomes remove
• $('.someDiv').myWidget() becomes new MyView({ el: $('.someDiv') });
• options have to become constructor parameters, but can be handled a couple of different ways