Using the Backbone.js router to navigate through views modularized with require.js

Question

I am separating my views and router into separate files with require. I then have a main.js file that instantiates the router, and also renders my default view.

My r

Answer 1

In case anyone else is looking for a solution to this problem like I was, I'm posting what I ended up doing. If you're using the boilerplate backbone.js, then you will have an initialize() function in router.js. I modified my initialize() function to look like the following:

initialize = function () {
  var app_router;
  app_router = new AppRouter();

  // Extend the View class to include a navigation method goTo
  Backbone.View.goTo = function (loc) {
    app_router.navigate(loc, true);
  };

  Backbone.history.start();
};

Due to backbone.js's particular flavour of inheritance, this allows allows me to call MyView.goTo(location); from within any of my views.

Answer 2

What about this approach? As backbone implements the template pattern in all its 4 components, with a little of design you can provide to each view an easy navigation mechanism through the app's router without needing to make any circular reference (this was something I saw in other similar posts, but try to avoid it).

Router component, not to much different from other router examples:

define('Router', ['backbone', ... ],
        function (Backbone, ...) {

            var MyRouter = Backbone.Router.extend({
                routes: {
                    'viewA': 'viewA',
                    'viewB': 'viewB'
                },

                initialize: function () {
                    ...
                };
            },
            viewA: function () {
                ...
            },

            viewB: function () {
                ...
            }
});

return MyRouter;
});

App, creates the router instance and fires the first view passing this instance:

define('App', ['backbone', ...
], function (Backbone, ...) {

    function initialize() {

        //route creation
        if (!this.routes)
            routes = new Router(this); 
        //backbone history start
        Backbone.history.start();

        //ViewA navigation, bigbang
        if (!this.viewA)
            this.viewA = new ViewA({router: this.routes});
        this.viewA.render();
    }

    return {
        initialize: initialize
    };
});

BaseView, base constructor definition for all views and also a navigation method:

define('BaseView', ['jquery', 'underscore',  'backbone', ...
], function ($, _, Backbone, ...) {
    var BaseView;

    BaseView = Backbone.View.extend({
        id: '...',

        constructor: function (options) {
            this.router = options.router;
            this.model = options.model;
            Backbone.View.prototype.constructor.call(this);
        },
        initialize: function () {
            this.template = _.template(tpl);
        },

        events: {

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

            return this;
        },
        //Provides transparent navigation between views throught the backbonejs
        //route mechanism
        navigate: function(pageId)
        {
            this.router.navigate(pageId, {trigger: true});
        }
    });

    return BaseView;
});

A View instance, each view extends from the base one instead of backbone, and inherits base behavior:

define('ViewA', ['jquery', 'underscore',  'backbone', 'BaseView'
], function ($, _, Backbone, BaseView) {
    var ViewA;

    ViewA = BaseView.extend({
        id: '...',

        constructor: function (options) {
            this._super("constructor");
        },

        ...
        foo: function()
        {
            ...

            this.navigate("viewB");
        }
    });

    return ViewA;
});

It works for me, and also it can be reuse in other projects.