Is it ok to use App.__container__.lookup to access instances? - view

Question

I need access to the ApplicationView from another view and I'm able to do so with App.__container__.lookup('view:application').
Is __container__ intended to be used this way?
Is there a better way to access instances of views?
(update)
My usecase:
My ApplicationView has a template with 2 columns.
The CSS is responsive so the size of the columns changes to accommodate the
width of the page.
I'm using Ember List View which requires height and width to be specified during initialization
I want to get the instance so I can access the DOM object to figure out its size
I can't use Ember.View.views because at that point, the ApplicationView has not been inserted into the DOM

Answer 1

Don't use that. One of the core developers said that whenever someone tries to use App.__container__, he would add another underscore.
If you really want to access an Ember.View intance use Ember.View.views['foo']. Where foo is the elementId of the view instance.
So if for example you want the App.ApplicationView instance:
App.ApplicationView = Ember.View.extend({
elementId: 'application'
});
// somewhere else in your code
var applicationViewInstance = Ember.View.views['application'];
Having said that, I never came across a situation where I needed to access view instances like that. If you can post your use case, I may be able to suggest alternative ways.
UPDATE: You want to access some properties of a view instance, from some other view instance (view height and width). You can pass those properties to the controller and let other controllers access them for using them in other views (source view -> source controller -> some other controller -> some other view):
App.ApplicationView = Ember.View.extend({
didInsertElement: function() {
var controller = this.get('controller'),
height = this.$().height(),
width = this.$().width();
controller.setProperties({
height: height,
width: width
});
}
});
App.SomeotherController = Ember.Controller.extend({
needs: ['application'],
applicationViewWidthBinding: 'controllers.application.width',
applicationViewHeightBinding: 'controllers.application.height'
});
App.SomeOtherView = Ember.View.extend({
// assuming its controller is an instance of App.SomeotherController
applicationViewWidthBinding: 'controller.applicationViewWidth',
applicationViewHeightBinding: 'controller.applicationViewHeight'
});