Controllers vs. App-level View in Backbone.js

Question

I'm trying to pick up Backbone.js and one of the issues I'm trying to work through is how people use controllers effectively in Backbone.

I noticed that controllers were added later in the framework, and that views have a significant amount of controller logic just because of the way the browser and DOM are set up. Also the TODO list example on Backbone's website is implemented without a controller.

So I'm just unclear on how to use the controller aspect of backbone. If anyone could shed some light on this topic I'd really appreciate it.

Thanks! Matt

Answer 1

The difference between a Backbone.View and a Backbone.Controller is that the Controller has the routes architecture, and the corresponding Backbone.History() listener, which pays attention to the part of the URL after the hash tag (#).

Fundamentally, this means that a Backbone.Controller provides bookmarkable URLs. Because you can hand-write the hash portion, and bookmark them, the Bookmark.Controller should only refer to objects for which it makes sense to display a GETtable item.

I've written a little tutorial, http://www.elfsternberg.com/2010/12/08/backbonejs-introducing-backbone-store/, a port of the Sammy tutorial of The Backbone Store. If you follow the link to the GitHub repository, you can also get the latest version.