Backbone.js - Best Practice for Implementing “Instant” Search

Question

Several places in my Backbone application I\'d like to have an instant search over a collection, but I\'m having a hard time coming up with the best way to implement it.

Answer 1

I got a little bit carried away while playing with your question.

First, I would create a dedicated collection to hold the filtered models and a "state model" to handle the search. For example,

var Filter = Backbone.Model.extend({
    defaults: {
        what: '', // the textual search
        where: 'all' // I added a scope to the search
    },
    initialize: function(opts) {
        // the source collection
        this.collection = opts.collection; 
        // the filtered models
        this.filtered = new Backbone.Collection(opts.collection.models); 
        //listening to changes on the filter
        this.on('change:what change:where', this.filter); 
    },

    //recalculate the state of the filtered list
    filter: function() {
        var what = this.get('what').trim(),
            where = this.get('where'),
            lookin = (where==='all') ? ['first', 'last'] : where,
            models;

        if (what==='') {
            models = this.collection.models;            
        } else {
            models = this.collection.filter(function(model) {
                return _.some(_.values(model.pick(lookin)), function(value) {
                    return ~value.toLowerCase().indexOf(what);
                });
            });
        }

        // let's reset the filtered collection with the appropriate models
        this.filtered.reset(models); 
    }
});

which would be instantiated as

var people = new Backbone.Collection([
    {first: 'John', last: 'Doe'},
    {first: 'Mary', last: 'Jane'},
    {first: 'Billy', last: 'Bob'},
    {first: 'Dexter', last: 'Morgan'},
    {first: 'Walter', last: 'White'},
    {first: 'Billy', last: 'Bobby'}
]);
var flt = new Filter({collection: people});

Then I would create separated views for the list and the input fields: easier to maintain and to move around

var BaseView = Backbone.View.extend({
    render:function() {
        var html, $oldel = this.$el, $newel;

        html = this.html();
        $newel=$(html);

        this.setElement($newel);
        $oldel.replaceWith($newel);

        return this;
    }
});
var CollectionView = BaseView.extend({
    initialize: function(opts) {
        // I like to pass the templates in the options
        this.template = opts.template;
        // listen to the filtered collection and rerender
        this.listenTo(this.collection, 'reset', this.render);
    },
    html: function() {
        return this.template({
            models: this.collection.toJSON()
        });
    }
});
var FormView = Backbone.View.extend({
    events: {
        // throttled to limit the updates
        'keyup input[name="what"]': _.throttle(function(e) {
             this.model.set('what', e.currentTarget.value);
        }, 200),

        'click input[name="where"]': function(e) {
            this.model.set('where', e.currentTarget.value);
        }
    }
});

BaseView allows to change the DOM in place, see Backbone, not "this.el" wrapping for details

The instances would look like

var inputView = new FormView({
    el: 'form',
    model: flt
});
var listView = new CollectionView({
    template: _.template($('#template-list').html()),
    collection: flt.filtered
});
$('#content').append(listView.render().el);

And a demo of the search at this stage http://jsfiddle.net/XxRD7/2/

Finally, I would modify CollectionView to graft the row views in my render function, something like

var ItemView = BaseView.extend({
    events: {
        'click': function() {
            console.log(this.model.get('first'));
        }
    }
});

var CollectionView = BaseView.extend({
    initialize: function(opts) {
        this.template = opts.template;
        this.listenTo(this.collection, 'reset', this.render);
    },
    html: function() {
        var models = this.collection.map(function (model) {
            return _.extend(model.toJSON(), {
                cid: model.cid
            });
        });
        return this.template({models: models});
    },
    render: function() {
        BaseView.prototype.render.call(this);

        var coll = this.collection;
        this.$('[data-cid]').each(function(ix, el) {
            new ItemView({
                el: el,
                model: coll.get($(el).data('cid'))
            });
        });

        return this;
    }
});

Another Fiddle http://jsfiddle.net/XxRD7/3/