How do I make it so that a function runs every time a backbone.js view is initialized?
I'm looking for something that I can put on outside of my normal view code, as an extension to backbone.js.
The idea is to reduce the amount of boilerplate.
Since Javascript is not a true object oriented programing language, you can't use inheritance to solve your problem as you could if it was java or c#.
One possible solution is to use the factory design pattern.
Instead of instantiating your view directly, you can call a factory method that will instantiate your view.
var viewFactory = function(view, viewOptions) {
//perform your boilerplate code
return new view(viewOptions);
}
AView = Backbone.View.extend({});
var person = new Backbone.Model({name: 'Paul'});
var view = viewFactory(AView, { model: person });
Here's a jsfiddle example
It's not as an elegant solution that is possible with other languages, but it does the job.