Naming Conventions

When your application boots, Ember will look for the objects exported by these modules in your project:

• app/app.js
• app/controllers/application.js
• app/templates/application.hbs

Ember.js will render the application template as the main template. If controller:application is provided, Ember.js will set an instance of controller:application as the controller for the template. This means that the template will get its properties from the controller.

If your app provides an route at app/routes/application.js Ember.js will invoke the router's hooks first, before rendering the application template. Hooks are implemented as methods and provide you access points within an Ember object's lifecycle to intercept and execute code to modify the default behavior at these points to meet your needs. Ember provides several hooks for you to utilize for various purposes (e.g. model, setupController, etc). In the example below route:application Route, which is an Ember.Route object, implements the setupController hook.

Here's a simple example that uses a route, controller, and template:

export default Ember.Route.extend({
  setupController: function(controller) {
    // `controller` is the instance of ApplicationController
    controller.set('title', "Hello world!");
  }
});

export default Ember.Controller.extend({
  appName: 'My First Example'
});

<h1>{{appName}}</h1>
<h2>{{title}}</h2>

In Ember.js applications, you will always provide your objects as classes, and the framework is responsible for instantiating them and providing them to your templates at runtime through the resolver.

Each of your routes will have a controller, and a template with the same name as the route.

Let's start with a simple router:

export default Ember.Router.extend().map(function(){
  this.route('favorites');
});

If your user navigates to /favorites, Ember.js will look for these classes in your project:

• app/routes/favorites.js
• app/controllers/favorites.js
• app/templates/favorites.hbs

Ember.js will render the favorites template into the {{outlet}} in the application template. It will set an instance of the controller:favorites as the controller for the template.

If your app provides an route:favorites, the framework will invoke it before rendering the template. Yes, this is a bit repetitive.

For a route like route:favorites, you will probably implement the model hook to specify what model your controller will present to the template.

Here's an example:

export default Ember.Route.extend({
  model: function() {
    // the model is an Array of all of the posts
    // fetched from this url
    return $.ajax('/a/service/url/where/posts/live');
  }
});

In this example, we didn't provide a controller:favorites. Because the model is an Array, Ember.js will automatically supply an instance of Ember.ArrayController, which will present the backing Array as its model.

You can treat the Ember.ArrayController as if it was the model itself. This has two major benefits:

• You can replace the controller's model at any time without having to directly notify the view of the change.
• The controller can provide additional computed properties or view-specific state that do not belong in the model layer. This allows a clean separation of concerns between the view, the controller and the model.

The template can iterate over the elements of the controller:

<ul>
{{#each item in model}}
  <li>{{item.title}}</li>
{{/each}}
</ul>

If a route uses a dynamic segment (a URL that includes a parameter), the route's model will be based on the value of that segment provided by the user.

Consider this router definition:

export default Ember.Router.extend().map(function(){
  this.route('post', { path: '/posts/:post_id' });
});

In this case, the route's name is post, so Ember.js will look for these objects:

• app/routes/post.js
• app/controllers/post.js
• app/templates/post.hbs

Your route handler's model hook converts the dynamic :post_id parameter into a model. The serialize hook converts a model object back into the URL parameters for this route (for example, when generating a link for a model object).

export default Ember.Route.extend({
  model: function(params) {
    return $.ajax('/my-service/posts/' + params.post_id);
  },

  serialize: function(post) {
    return { post_id: Ember.get(post, 'id') };
  }
});

Because this pattern is so common, it is the default for route handlers.

• If your dynamic segment ends in _id, the default model hook will convert the first part into a model class on the application's namespace (post looks for app/models/post.js). It will then call find on that class with the value of the dynamic segment.
• The default behaviour of the serialize hook is to replace the route's dynamic segment with the value of the model object's id property.

If you don't specify a route handler for the post route (app/routes/post.js), Ember.js will still render the app/templates/post.hbs template with the app's instance of app/controllers/post.js.

If you don't specify the controller (app/controllers/post.js), Ember will automatically make one for you based on the return value of the route's model hook. If the model is an Array, you get an ArrayController. Otherwise, you get an ObjectController.

If you don't specify a post template, Ember.js won't render anything!

You can nest routes under a resource.

export default Ember.Router.extend().map(function(){
  this.route('posts', function() {    // the `posts` route
    this.route('favorites');          // the `posts.favorites` route
    this.route('post');               // the `posts.post` route
  });
});

Here are the naming conventions for each of the routes defined in this router:

At every level of nesting (including the top level), Ember.js automatically provides a route for the / path named index.

For example, if you write a simple router like this:

export default Ember.Router.extend().map(function(){
  this.route('favorites');
});

It is the equivalent of:

export default Ember.Router.extend().map(function(){
  this.route('index', { path: '/' });
  this.route('favorites');
});

If the user visits /, Ember.js will look for these objects:

• app/routes/index.js
• app/controllers/index.js
• app/templates/index.hbs

The index template will be rendered into the {{outlet}} in the application template. If the user navigates to /favorites, Ember.js will replace the index template with the favorites template.

A nested router like this:

export default Ember.Router.extend().map(function(){
  this.route('posts', function() {
    this.route('favorites');
  });
});

Is the equivalent of:

export default Ember.Router.extend().map(function(){
  this.route('index', { path: '/' });
  this.route('posts', function() {
    this.route('index', { path: '/' });
    this.route('favorites');
  });
});

If the user navigates to /posts, the current route will be posts.index. Ember.js will look for objects named:

• app/routes/posts/index.js
• app/controllers/posts/index.js
• app/templates/posts/index.hbs

First, the posts template will be rendered into the {{outlet}} in the application template. Then, the posts/index template will be rendered into the {{outlet}} in the posts template.

If the user then navigates to /posts/favorites, Ember.js will replace the {{outlet}} in the posts template with the posts/favorites template.