Getting Started with Backbone Marionette

Build large-scale JavaScript applications with Backbone Marionette quickly and efficiently

Overview

• Create scalable and highly interactive web applications using one of the best frameworks for Backbone.js
• Learn about controllers, views, modules, events, commands, and regions
• Make the most out of Backbone Marionette by understanding its philosophy and applying it to real-life development tasks

In Detail

Backbone Marionette is a composite application library for Backbone.js that aims to simplify the construction of large-scale JavaScript applications. It is a collection of common design and implementation patterns found in the applications that we build with Backbone, and it includes pieces inspired by composite application architectures, event-driven architectures, and messaging architectures.

This guide will help you learn some key concepts that will allow you to build large-scale applications with ease. You will learn how to add new features quickly and easily using a solid and composite Backbone Marionette framework. This book is a practical guide to developing scalable applications using an incremental and modular approach with Marionette.js.

This book begins by showing you the key benefits of Marionette.js and how to set up a development environment so you can begin writing code using this framework. It then walks you through the main components of the library such as the router, controller, and application. After that, it introduces you to topics like view types and the view life cycle before moving on to more advanced topics such as modularization, enterprise messaging patterns, incremental use, and memory management.

Getting Started with Backbone Marionette contains a lot of infrastructural examples that will help you to build an application of virtually any module size. It provides you with a collection of common design and implementation patterns to break your applications into small pieces. It then wraps-up by implementing extended capabilities like asynchronous module definitions and handlebars.

What you will learn from this book

• Install and understand the core concepts of Backbone Marionette
• Orchestrate views with a controller object
• Divide your application into logical independent regions
• Manage an object’s life cycle to avoid memory leaks
• Reduce boilerplate and glue code normally needed in Backbone Development by decoupling your JavaScript applications into modules.
• Provide structure, organization, and pattern to your Backbone code

Approach

This book is written with an easy-to-understand approach with the intention of giving small but concrete examples that will help you to quickly understand each component of Marionette. Follow along as we work together to build a practical application using Backbone Marionette.

Who this book is written for

If you are a web application developer interested in using Backbone Marionette for a real-life project, then this book is for you. As a prerequisite, knowledge of JavaScript and a working knowledge of Backbone.js is required.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1: Starting with Backbone Marionette
Chapter 2: Our First Application
Chapter 3: Marionette View Types and Their Use
Chapter 4: Managing Views
Chapter 5: Divide and Conquer – Modularizing Everything
Chapter 6: Messaging
Chapter 7: Changing and Growing