Trigger sort method from an event in Backbone.js - sorting

Question

I have a Backbone.js project which uses a comparator function defined in the collection. It sorts items when the page is refreshed, but I am trying to get it to sort when a button is clicked instead of on page refresh. Here is my code:
var Thing = Backbone.Model.extend({
defaults: {
title: 'blank',
rank: ''
}
});
var ThingView = Backbone.View.extend({
className: 'thingClass',
template: _.template('<b><button id="remove">X</button> <b><button id="edit">Edit</button> <%= title %> Rank:<%= rank %></b>'),
editTemplate: _.template('<input class="name" value="<%= name %>" /><button id="save">Save</button>'),
events: {
"click #remove": "deleteItem",
"click #edit": "editItem",
"click #save": "saveItem",
},
deleteItem: function () {
console.log('deleted');
this.model.destroy();
this.remove();
},
editItem: function () {
console.log('editing');
this.$el.html(this.editTemplate(this.model.toJSON()));
},
saveItem: function () {
console.log('saved');
editTitle = $('input.name').val();
console.log(editTitle);
this.model.save({
title: editTitle
});
this.$el.html(this.template(this.model.toJSON()));
},
render: function () {
var attributes = this.model.toJSON();
//console.log (attributes);
this.$el.append(this.template(attributes));
return this;
}
});
var ThingsList = Backbone.Collection.extend({
model: Thing,
localStorage: new Store("store-name"),
comparator: function(thing) {
return thing.get('rank');
},
});
var thingsList = new ThingsList;
var ThingsListView = Backbone.View.extend({
el: $('body'),
events: {
'click #add': 'insertItem',
'click #sort': 'sortItems',
},
initialize: function () {
thingsList.fetch();
thingsList.toJSON();
this.render();
this.collection.on("add", this.renderThing, this);
this.collection.on("reset", this.clearRender, this);
},
insertItem: function (e) {
newTitle = $('#new-item').val();
newRank = $('#rank').val();
newThing = new Thing({
title: newTitle,
rank: newRank
});
this.collection.add(newThing);
newThing.save();
console.log(this.collection.length);
},
sortItems: function (e) {
console.log('clicked sort button');
this.collection.sort();
this.$el.detach('.item');
},
render: function () {
_.each(this.collection.models, function (items) {
this.renderThing(items);
}, this);
},
renderThing: function (items) {
var thingView = new ThingView({
model: items
});
this.$el.append(thingView.render().el);
},
clearRender: function () {
console.log('clear render called')
_.each(this.collection.models, function (items) {
//this.remove();
this.$el.remove(".thingClass")
this.renderThing(items);
}, this);
},
test: function (items) {
console.log('test worked');
},
});
var thingsListView = new ThingsListView({
collection: thingsList
});

Answer 1

Are you sure your collection isn't resorting itself? keep in mind that the order of the models in the collection won't change the order of how they appear on the page if they are already rendered.
I'm guessing that what you are trying to do is resort the items that have already been rendered, to do so you would need re-render your collection. If you are going to do so I would recommend that you cache your views and on a sort detach the associated element from the DOM and reattach them in the correct order.
As an example
var ThingsListView = Backbone.View.extend({
_views: {},
initialize: function () {
this.collection.bind('add', this.add, this);
this.collection.bind('reset', this.render, this); //sort triggers a reset
},
add: function (thing) {
var view = new ThingView({model: thing});
this._views[thing.cid] = view; //use client id of model as key for the views cache
this.$el.append(view.render().el);
},
render: function() {
$('li, this.$el).detach(); //detach so that bound events aren't lost
_.each(this.collection.models, function(thing) {
this.$el.append(this.views[thing.cid].el); //get view from cache
},this);
},
sort: function() {
this.collection.sort();
}
}
})
(a couple of differences from my example code and yours I'm assuming here that the collection view has a 'el' referring to a container 'ul', I also don't show how your triggering the sort (basically something like thingListView.sort();)
Edit: It might not be so obvious from the example code I posted, so I should have mentioned to begin with what #Deeptechtons said that when you sort a collection it triggers a reset event
Edit2: If your not interested in caching your views, then the easiest way to remove your current views would probablly be to add a class to the rendered div
var ThingView = Backbone.View.extend({
className: 'thingClass',
//rest of your thingViewCode
Then in your clearRender method just add $(".thingClass", this.$el).remove(); to the beginning of the method.