backbone.overlay-view

A view that covers your webpage, and is closed when clicked. It's useful as a background for dropdowns, modals, etc.

Installation

The easiest way to install this is through npm or bower.

npm install backbone.overlay-view
bower install backbone.overlay-view

Be sure to include both the JS and CSS files in your application.

Motivation

A common UI feature in client side applications is an element that blocks the user from interacting with the rest of the application. This is typically used when the user opens, say, a custom dropdown menu or a modal.

Rather than associating a new overlay with each dropdown, I like to use a single view that any other view in my app can utilize.

Basic Usage

// Create a single overlayView for your entire app
var overlayView = new Backbone.OverlayView();

// Display it
overlayView.display();

// When the user clicks on it, it will hide itself and emit the `hide` event.
// You can use that event to close the modal / dropdown / do whatever.

Child Views

Using nested views within the OverlayView is common practice. I recommend that you stick to existing DOM APIs to append another View's element into the OverlayView's element. Then, when the OverlayView is hidden, you can destroy the nested view.

This might look something like:

// Attach the dropdown element to the overlay view
overlayView.$el.append(dropdownView.$el);

// Destroy the dropdown when the overlayView is hidden
dropdownView.listenToOnce(overlayView, 'hide', dropdownView.destroy);

// Show the overlay view
overlayView.display();

// Click the overlay to destroy the dropdown.

Methods

isDisplaying()

Returns a Boolean indicating whether or not the view is currently displaying. By default, the view is not displaying.

display()

Display the view, if it isn't already displayed, by removing the .overlay-view-hidden class.

Returns the view instance.

hide()

Hide the view, if it's being displayed, by adding the .overlay-view-hidden class.

Returns the view instance.

Events

before:display

Triggered just before the view is displayed.

display

Triggered just after the view is displayed.

before:hide

Triggered just before the view is hidden.

hide

Triggered just after the view is hidden.

click

Triggered when the user clicks the view itself, but not a child of the view. It's generally safer to use the hide event to track when the overlay closes, because it may not always close due to a click (for instance, when the user completes the task offered by the modal / dropdown).

click:child

Triggered when the user clicks a descendant element of the view.