Rivets.js

Rivets.js is a declarative, observer-based DOM-binding facility that plays well with existing frameworks and supports multiple contexts. It aims to be lightweight, extensible, and configurable to work with any event-driven model.

Disclaimer

Rivets.js is alpha software. While it should work well enough for prototyping and weekend projects, it is still undergoing major development. APIs are subject to change.

Usage

No contrived example here yet, but the rivets module is simple. It exposes a single bind function that takes three arguements; the parent DOM element that you wish to bind to, an adapter interface, and a set of context objects.

rivets.bind(el, adapter, {user: currentUser, item: item});

Available bindings:

• data-text: one-way binding that sets the node's text.
• data-value: two-way binding that sets the node's value.
• data-show: one-way binding that sets the node's display state.
• data-hide: one-way inverse binding that sets the node's display state.
• data-enabled: one-way binding that sets the node's enabled state.
• data-disabled: one-way inverse binding that sets the node's enabled state.
• data-checked: two-way binding that sets the node's checked state.
• data-unchecked: two-way inverse binding that sets the node's checked state.
• data-selected: two-way binding that sets the node's selected state.
• data-unselected: two-way inverse binding that sets the node's checked state.
• data-[attribute]: one-way binding that sets the node's attribute value.

Adapters

Rivets.js is model interface-agnostic, meaning that it can work with any event-driven model by way of defining an adapter. The following standard adapter observes change:[attribute] style events and works with frameworks like Backbone.js, Spine.js and Stapes.js with minimal alterations for each. If your model's events API differs, it's trivial to write an adapter that will work with your own model objects.

An adapter is an object that responds to subscribe, read and publish.

backboneAdapter = {
  subscribe: function(obj, keypath, callback) {
    obj.on('change:' + keypath, function(m, v) { callback(v) });
  },

  read: function(obj, keypath) {
    obj.get(keypath);
  },

  publish: function(obj, keypath, value) {
    obj.set(keypath, data);
  }
}

subscribe(obj, keypath, callback)

• obj: The model object that we want to subscribe to for attribute changes. These are what get passed in as context objects when calling rivets.bind.
• keypath: The attribute name that we want to scope to when subscribing to the model's attribute changes. This would most commonly be a single key or a nested keypath (support for nested keypaths depends on if your model object publishes events on nested attribute changes). You may define and intercept this value in any format, for example if your model object uses author[profile][bio] instead of author.profile.bio.
• callback: The function that performs the binding routine. Call this function with the new attribute value.

read(obj, keypath)

• obj: The model object that we want to read the attribute from.
• keypath: The attribute name that we want to read from the model object.

publish(obj, keypath, value)

• obj: The model object that we want to set the new attribute value on.
• keypath: The attribute name that we want to set on the model object.
• value: The new attribute value that we want to set on the model.