KnockoutJS Essentials

A view is a visible, interactive UI representing the state of the view-model. It displays information from the view-model, sends commands to the view-model (for example, when the user clicks on buttons), and updates whenever the state of the view-model changes. In our projects, views are represented by the HTML markups.

To define our first view, we are going to build an HTML to display a product. Add this new content to the container:

<div class="container-fluid">
  <div class="row">
    <div class="col-md-12">
      <!-- our app goes here →
      <h1>Product</h1>
      <div>
        <strong>ID:</strong>
        <span data-bind="text:product.id"></span><br/>
        <strong>Name:</strong>
        <span data-bind="text:product.name"></span><br/>
        <strong>Price:</strong>
        <span data-bind="text:product.price"></span><br/>
        <strong>Stock:</strong>
        <span data-bind="text:product.stock"></span>
      </div> 
    </div>
  </div>
</div>

Look at the data-bind attribute. This is called declarative binding. This attribute isn't native to HTML, though it is perfectly correct. But since the browser doesn't know what it means, you need to activate Knockout (the ko.applyBindings method) to make it take effect.

To display data from a product, we need to have a product defined inside our view-model:

var vm = {
  product: {
    id:1,
    name:'T-Shirt',
    price:10,
    stock: 20
  }
};
ko.applyBindings(vm);//This how knockout is activated

Add the view-model to the end of the script tags:

<script type="text/javascript" src="js/viewmodel.js"></script>

This will be the result of our app:

Result of data binding

This data represents objects and operations in your business domain (for example, products) and is independent of any UI. When using Knockout, you will usually make AJAX calls to some server-side code to read and write this stored model data.

Models and view-models should be separated from each other. In order to define our product model, we are going to follow some steps:

The code of the product.js file is as follows:

var Product = function (id,name,price,stock) {
  "use strict";
  var
    _id = id,
    _name = name,
    _price = price,
    _stock = stock
  ;

  return {
    id:_id,
    name:_name,
    price:_price,
    stock:_stock
  };
};

This function creates a simple JavaScript object that contains the interface of the product. Defining the object using this pattern, called the revealing module pattern, allows us to clearly separate public elements from private elements.

To learn more about the revealing module pattern, follow the link https://carldanley.com/js-revealing-module-pattern/.

Link this file with your index.html file and set it at the bottom of all the script tags.

<script type="text/javascript" src="js/models/product.js">
</script>

Now we can use the product model to define the product in the view-model:

var vm = {
  product: Product(1,'T-Shirt',10,20);
};
ko.applyBindings(vm);

If we run the code again, we will see the same result, but our code is more readable now. View-models are used to store and handle a lot of information, because of this view-models are commonly treated as modules and the revealing module pattern is applied on them. This pattern allows us in a clear manner to expose the API (public elements) of the view-model and hide private elements.

var vm = (function(){
  var product = Product(1,'T-Shirt', 10, 20);
  return {
    product: product
  };
})();

Using this pattern when our view-model begins to grow helps us to clearly see which elements belong to the public part of the object and which ones are private.

If you want to detect and respond to changes in one object, you'd use observables. If you want to detect and respond to changes in a collection of things, use an observableArray. This is useful in many scenarios where you're displaying or editing multiple values and need repeated sections of the UI to appear and disappear as items are added and removed.

To display a collection of products in our application, we are going to follow some simple steps:

We use the foreach property to point out that all that is inside this tag should be repeated for each item in the collection. Inside this tag we are in the context of each element, so you can just bind properties directly. Observe the result in your browser.

We want to know how many items we have in our catalog, so add this line of code above the table:

<strong>Items:</strong>
<span data-bind="text:catalog.length"></span>

To insert elements in the products array, an event should occur. In this case, the user will click on a button and this action will fire an action that will insert a new product in the collection.

In future chapters, you will learn more about events. Now we will just need to know that there is a binding property named click. It receives a function as a parameter, and this function is fired when the user clicks on the element.

To insert an element, we need a form to insert the values of the new product. Write this HMTL code just below the <h1> tag:

<form class="form-horizontal" role="form" data-bind="with:newProduct">
  <div class="form-group">
    <div class="col-sm-12">
      <input type="text" class="form-control" placeholder="Name" data-bind="textInput:name">
      </div>
    </div>
    <div class="form-group">
      <div class="col-sm-12">
      <input type="password" class="form-control" placeholder="Price" data-bind="textInput:price">
      </div>
    </div>
    <div class="form-group">
      <div class="col-sm-12">
      <input type="password" class="form-control" placeholder="Stock" data-bind="textInput:stock">
      </div>
    </div>
    <div class="form-group">
      <div class="col-sm-12">
      <button type="submit" class="btn btn-default" data-bind="{click:$parent.addProduct}">
        <i class="glyphicon glyphicon-plus-sign">
        </i> Add Product
      </button>
    </div>
  </div>
</form>

In this template, we find some new bindings:

For more information about binding context properties, read the Knockout documentation at http://knockoutjs.com/documentation/binding-context.html.

Using with to set a context and parent to navigate through them

Now it is time to add the newProduct object to our view-model. First we should define a new product with empty data:

var newProduct = Product("","","","");

We have defined a literal object that will contain the information we want to put inside our new product. Also, we have defined a method to clear or reset the object once the insertion is done. Now we define our addProduct method:

var addProduct = function (context) {
  var id = new Date().valueOf();//random id from time
  var newProduct = Product(
    id,
    context.name(),
    context.price(),
    context.stock()
  );
  catalog.push(newProduct);
  newProduct.clear();
};

This method creates a new product with the data received from the click event.

The click event always sends the context as the first argument. Note also that you can use array methods such as push in an observable array. Check out the Knockout documentation (http://knockoutjs.com/documentation/observableArrays.html) to see all the methods available in arrays.

We should implement the private method that will clean data from the new product once it is added to the collection:

var clearNewProduct = function () {
  newProduct.name("");
  newProduct.price("");
  newProduct.stock("");
};

Update the view-model:

return {
    catalog: catalog,
    newProduct: newProduct,
    addProduct: addProduct
};

If you run the code, you will notice that when you try to add a new product nothing happens. This is because, despite the fact that our products have observable properties, our array is not an observable one. For this reason, Knockout is not listening to the changes. We should convert the array to an observableArray observable.

var catalog = ko.observableArray([
  Product(1, "T-Shirt", 10.00, 20),
  Product(2, "Trousers", 20.00, 10),
  Product(3, "Shirt", 15.00, 20),
  Product(4, "Shorts", 5.00, 10)
]);

Now Knockout is listening to what is going on with this array, but not what is happening inside each element. Knockout just tells us about inserting or deleting elements in the array, but not about editing elements. If you want to know what is happening in an element, the object should have observable properties.

An observableArray observable just tracks which objects it holds, and notifies listeners when objects are added or removed.

Behind the scenes, the observableArray is actually an observable whose value is an array. So you can get the underlying JavaScript array by invoking the observableArray observable as a function with no parameters, just like any other observable. Then you can read information from that underlying array.

<strong>Items:</strong>
<span data-bind="text:catalog().length"></span>

It is not weird to think that some values we show in our interface depend on other values that Knockout is already observing. For example, if we would like to search products in our catalog by name, it is evident that the products in the catalog that we show in the list are related to the term we have entered in the search box. In these cases Knockout offers us computed observables.

You can learn in detail about computed observables in the Knockout documentation at http://knockoutjs.com/documentation/computedObservables.html.

To develop the search function, define a textbox where we can write a term to search. We are going to bind it to the searchTerm property. To update the value as we write, we should use the textInput binding. If we use the value binding, the value will be updated when the element loses the focus. Put this code over the products table:

<div class="input-group">
  <span class="input-group-addon">
    <i class="glyphicon glyphicon-search"></i> Search</span>
  <input type="text" class="form-control" data-bind="textInput: searchTerm">
</div>

To create a filtered catalog, we are going to check all our items and test if the searchTerm is in the item's name property.

var searchTerm = ko.observable(''); 
var filteredCatalog = ko.computed(function () {
  //if catalog is empty return empty array
  if (!catalog()) {
    return [];
  }
  var filter = searchTerm().toLowerCase();
  //if filter is empty return all the catalog
  if (!filter) {
    return catalog();
  }
  //filter data
  var filtered = ko.utils.arrayFilter(catalog(), function (item) {
    var fields = ["name"]; //we can filter several properties
    var i = fields.length;
    while (i--) {
      var prop = fields[i];
      var strProp = ko.unwrap(item[prop]).toLocaleLowerCase();
      if (strProp.indexOf(filter) !== -1){
        return true;
      };
    }
    Return false;
  });
  return filtered;
});

The ko.utils object is not documented in Knockout. It is an object used by the library internally. It has public access and has some functions that can help us with observables. There are a lot of unofficial examples about it on the Internet.

One of its helpful functions is ko.utils.arrayFilter. If you look at line 13, we have used this method to obtain a filtered array.

This function gets an array as the first parameter. Notice that we invoke the catalog array observable to get the elements. We don't pass the observable itself, but the contents of the observable.

The second parameter is the function that decides whether the item will be in the filtered array or not. It will return true if the item has the conditions to be in the filtered array. Otherwise it returns false.

On line 14 of this snippet, we can find an array called fields. This parameter will contain the fields that should comply with the criteria. In this case, we just check that the filter value is in the name value. If we are pretty sure that we are just going to check the name field, we can simplify the filter function:

var filtered = ko.utils.arrayFilter(catalog(), function (item) {
  var strProp = ko.unwrap(item["name"]).toLocaleLowerCase();
  return (strProp.indexOf(filter) > -1);
});

The ko.unwrap function returns the value that contains the observable. We use ko.unwrap when we are not sure if the variable contains an observable or not, for example:

var notObservable = 'hello';
console.log(notObservable()) //this will throw an error.
console.log(ko.unwrap(notObservable)) //this will display 'hello');

Expose the filtered catalog into the public API. Notice that now we need to use the filtered catalog instead of the original catalog of products. Because we are applying the revealing module pattern, we can keep the original API interface and just update the value of the catalog with the filtered catalog. We don't need to alert the view that we are going to use a different catalog or other element, as long as we always maintain the same public interface:

return {
  searchTerm: searchTerm,
  catalog: filteredCatalog,
  newProduct: newProduct,
  addProduct: addProduct
};

Now, try to type some characters in the search box and see in your browser how the catalog updates the data automatically.

Wonderful! We have completed our first three user stories:

Let's see the final result: