Setting Up a Controller

Changing the URL may also change which template is displayed on screen. Templates, however, are usually only useful if they have some source of information to display.

In Ember.js, a template retrieves information to display from a controller.

Two built-in controllers—Ember.ObjectController and Ember.ArrayController—make it easy for a controller to present a model's properties to a template, along with any additional display-specific properties.

To tell one of these controllers which model to present, set its model property in the route handler's setupController hook.

App.Router.map(function() {
  this.resource('post', { path: '/posts/:post_id' });
});

App.PostRoute = Ember.Route.extend({
  // The code below is the default behavior, so if this is all you
  // need, you do not need to provide a setupController implementation
  // at all.
  setupController: function(controller, model) {
    controller.set('model', model);
  }
});

The setupController hook receives the route handler's associated controller as its first argument. In this case, the PostRoute's setupController receives the application's instance of App.PostController.

To specify a controller other than the default, set the route's controllerName property:

App.SpecialPostRoute = Ember.Route.extend({
  controllerName: 'post'
});

As a second argument, it receives the route handler's model. For more information, see Specifying a Route's Model.

The default setupController hook sets the model property of the associated controller to the route handler's model.

If you want to configure a controller other than the controller associated with the route handler, use the controllerFor method:

App.PostRoute = Ember.Route.extend({
  setupController: function(controller, model) {
    this.controllerFor('topPost').set('model', model);
  }
});