Use Backbone.Radio to build large, maintainable, and decoupled applications.
Backbone.Radio is a collection of messaging patterns for Backbone applications. It uses Backbone.Events as a pub-sub message bus, then adds semantics to your communications through the addition of two new messaging patterns, Commands and Requests. The three systems are bound together as Channels, which provide explicit namespacing to your communications.
Clone this repository or install via Bower or npm.
bower install backbone.radio
npm install backbone.radio
Anyone who has used Backbone should be quite familiar with Backbone.Events. Backbone.Events is what facilitates communications between objects in your application. The quintessential example of this is listening in on a Model's change event.
// Listen in on a model's change events
this.listenTo(someModel, 'change', myCallback);
// Later on, the model triggers a change event when it has been changed
someModel.trigger('change');Let's look at a diagram for Backbone.Events:
It goes without saying that Backbone.Events is incredibly useful when you mix it into instances of Classes. But what if you had a standalone Object with an instance of Backbone.Events on it? This gives you a powerful message bus to utilize.
// Create a message bus
var myBus = _.extend({}, Backbone.Events);
// Listen in on the message bus
this.listenTo(myBus, 'some:event', myCallback);
// Trigger an event on the bus
myBus.trigger('some:event');This is the first principle of Backbone.Radio: building a message bus out of Backbone.Events is useful. But before we go more into that, let's look at the two other messaging systems of Backbone.Radio.
Commands is similar to Backbone.Events in many ways. You can mix it into your objects, or use it as a standalone message bus.
// You should be familiar with attaching Backbone.Events to an object...
_.extend(myObj, Backbone.Events);
// Well, attaching Commands is identical
_.extend(myObj, Backbone.Radio.Commands);Once you've attached Commands to your object your object will now have access to the Commands API.
The next question, then, is what are Commands? Commands are a semantic implementation of Backbone.Events. One of the primary differences between Backbone.Events and Commands is that Commands have intent, whereas Events do not. For example, when a model triggers its change event, it has no goal in mind. Instead, the listeners of that event decide what to do with that information. Commands are different. You fire a Command when you do have a goal in mind. And to be even more specific, you fire a Command when you want another object to perform a particular task.
// Set up a view to comply with a command
myView.comply('render', myView.render);
// Causes the view to render
myView.command('render');Commands have a few other things that make it distinct from Backbone.Events. First, you can only register one 'listener' at a time, unlike Backbone.Events where there can be many listeners for each trigger. Instead, Commands is a one-to-one relationship. Another difference is that no information is returned from the executed callback. This is also unlike Events, where information can travel from the triggerer to its listeners.
The following diagram illustrates the Commands pattern:
You might ask yourself, 'Now why in the world would I fire the command when I can just call the method directly?' The answer is that you wouldn't. I only meant for the above example to be used as a means to familiarize yourself with the way Commands works. The real utility of Commands comes when it is used in an independent message bus. But more on that later – let's first look at Requests.
Requests is the last piece of Backbone.Radio. You use it just like Events and Commands: mix it into an object.
_.extend(myObj, Backbone.Radio.Requests);Requests share more similarities to Commands than they do Events. They are semantic, by which I mean that there is an intention when making a request. Of course, the intent here is that you are asking for information to be returned. Just like Commands, requests have a one-to-one system; you can't have multiple 'listeners' to the triggerer.
Let's look at a basic example.
// Set up an object to reply to a request. In this case, whether or not its visible.
myView.reply('visible', this.isVisible);
// Get whether it's visible or not.
var isViewVisible = myView.request('visible');The handler in reply can either return a flat value, like true or false, or a function to be executed. Either way, the value is sent back to
the requester.
Here's a diagram of the Requests pattern:
The real draw of Backbone.Radio are channels. A Channel is simply an object that has Backbone.Events, Radio.Commands, and Radio.Requests mixed into it; it's a standalone message bus comprised of all three systems.
Getting a handle of a Channel is easy.
// Get a reference to the channel named 'user'
var userChannel = Backbone.Radio.channel('user');Once you've got a channel, you can attach handlers to it.
userChannel.on('some:event', function() {
console.log('An event has happened!');
});
userChannel.comply('some:action', function() {
console.log('I was told to execute some action');
});
userChannel.reply('some:request', 'food is good');You can also use the 'trigger' methods on the Channel.
userChannel.trigger('some:event');
userChannel.command('some:command');
userChannel.request('some:request');You can have as many channels as you'd like
// Maybe you have a channel for the profile section of your app
var profileChannel = Backbone.Radio.channel('profile');
// And another one for settings
var settingsChannel = Backbone.Radio.channel('settings');The whole point of Channels is that they provide a way to explicitly namespace events in your application. It gives you greater control over which objects are able to talk to one another.
If you're having difficulty remembering the API of Channels here's a useful mnemonic for you.
Events is the API that you know; on, off, stopListening and so on. Commands, which starts with a C, only
uses verbs that start with C: command, comply, stopComplying. And lastly, Requests, which starts with an R,
only uses verbs that start with R: request, reply, and so on.
Marionette does not use Radio by default, although it will in the next major release: v3. However, you can use Radio today by including a small shim after you load Marionette, but before you load your application's code. To get the shim, refer to this Gist.
Like Backbone.Events, all of the following methods support both the object-syntax and space-separated syntax. For the sake of brevity, I only provide examples for these alternate syntaxes in the most common use cases.
Order a command to be completed. Optionally pass arguments to send along to the callback. Like Backbone.Event's trigger method,
this method returns the instance of Commands.
You can order multiple commands at once by using the space-separated syntax.
myChannel.command('commandOne commandTwo');This method always returns undefined.
Register a handler for commandName on this object. callback will be executed whenever the command is run. Optionally
pass a context for the callback, defaulting to this.
To register a default handler for Commands use the default commandName. The unhandled commandName will be passed as the first argument.
myChannel.comply('default', function(commandName) {
console.log('No handler was found for this command: ' + commandName);
});
// This will be handled by the default handler
myChannel.command('someUnhandledCommand');To register multiple commands at once you may also pass in a hash.
// Connect all of the commands at once
myChannel.comply({
'some:command': myCallback,
'some:other:command': someOtherCallback
}, context);Returns the instance of Commands.
Register a handler for commandName that only executes a single time.
Like comply, you may also pass a hash of commands to register many at once. Refer to the comply documentation above
for an example.
Returns the instance of Commands.
If context is passed, then all handlers with that context will be removed from the object. If callback is
passed then all handlers with that callback will be removed. If commandName is passed then this method will
remove that handler. If no arguments are passed then all handlers are removed from the object.
You may also pass a hash of commands or space-separated list to remove many commands at once. Refer to the comply documentation above
for an example.
Returns the instance of Commands.
Make a request for requestName. Optionally pass arguments to send along to the callback. Returns the reply, if one
exists. If there is no request then undefined will be returned.
You can make multiple requests at once by using the space-separated syntax.
myChannel.request('commandOne commandTwo');When using the space-separated syntax, the responses will be returned to you as an array.
Register a handler for requestName on this object. callback will be executed whenever the request is made. Optionally
pass a context for the callback, defaulting to this.
To register a default handler for Requests use the default requestName. The unhandled requestName will be passed as the first argument.
myChannel.reply('default', function(requestName) {
console.log('No reply exists for this request: ' + requestName);
});
// This will be handled by the default request
myChannel.request('someUnhandledRequest');To register multiple requests at once you may also pass in a hash.
// Connect all of the replies at once
myChannel.reply({
'some:request': myCallback,
'some:other:request': someOtherCallback
}, context);Returns the instance of Requests.
Register a handler for requestName that will only be called a single time.
Like reply, you may also pass a hash of replies to register many at once. Refer to the reply documentation above
for an example.
Returns the instance of Requests.
If context is passed, then all replies with that context will be removed from the object. If callback is
passed then all requests with that callback will be removed. If requestName is passed then this method will
remove that reply. If no arguments are passed then all replies are removed from the object.
You may also pass a hash of replies or space-separated replies to remove many at once.
Returns the instance of Requests.
The name of the channel.
Destroy all handlers from Backbone.Events, Radio.Commands, and Radio.Requests from the channel. Returns the channel.
Get a reference to a channel by name. If a name is not provided an Error will be thrown.
var authChannel = Backbone.Radio.channel('auth');This is a Boolean property. Setting it to true will cause console warnings to be issued
whenever you interact with a request or command that isn't registered. This is useful in development when you want to
ensure that you've got your event names in order.
// Turn on debug mode
Backbone.Radio.DEBUG = true;
// This will log a warning to the console if it goes unhandled
myChannel.command('show:view');
// Likewise, this will too, helping to prevent memory leaks
myChannel.stopReplying('startTime');Tuning into a Channel is another useful tool for debugging. It passes all triggers, commands, and requests made on the channel to
Radio.log.
Returns Backbone.Radio.
Backbone.Radio.tuneIn('calendar');Once you're done tuning in you can call tuneOut to stop the logging. Returns Backbone.Radio.
Backbone.Radio.tuneOut('calendar');When tuned into a Channel, this method will be called for all activity on
a channel. The default implementation is to console.log the following message:
'[channelName] "eventName" args1 arg2 arg3...'where args are all of the arguments passed with the message. It is exposed so that you may overwrite it with your own logging message if you wish.
If you'd like to execute a method on a channel, yet you don't need to keep a handle of the channel around, you can do so with the proxy
functions directly on the Backbone.Radio object.
// Trigger 'some:event' on the settings channel
Backbone.Radio.trigger('settings', 'some:event');All of the methods for all three messaging systems are available from the top-level API.