Question

How can i check wether an outlet is already connected in my application template? In renderTemplate() I want to check wether the outlet actually needs to be connected or not (for performance reasons). The final code should look something similar to this:

renderTemplate: function(controller, model) {
    var isMyOutletConnected =  //how to do that?

    if(!isMyOutletConnected){
        this.render('someTemplate', {   // the template to render
          into: 'application',          // the template to render into
          outlet: 'someOutlet',       // the name of the outlet in that template
          controller: "someController"  // the controller to use for the template
        });
    }
}

I tried to use the container to lookup the application view via: container.lookup("view:application)
but this instantiated a new view instead of returning the existing one.

Answer 1

Thanks for your input. This is the solution i came up with:

1 – Creating a view registry for my singleton views. View registry resides in the Application instance and its properties are set by the views in didInsertElement.

var App = Ember.Application.create({
    viewRegistry : {
        applicationView : null
    }
});

App.ApplicationView = Ember.View.extend({
    templateName : 'application',
    didInsertElement : function(){
        App.set("viewRegistry.applicationView", this);
    }
});

2 – Now i can access this registry to check for connected outlets in my routes:

isOutletOfApplicationViewConnected : function(outletName){
    var applicationView = App.viewRegistry.applicationView;
    if(applicationView){
        return applicationView.get("_outlets." + outletName) != undefined;
    }else{
        return false;
    }
},
renderTemplate: function(controller, model) {
    var isMyOutletConnected =  this.isOutletOfApplicationViewConnected("someOutlet");

    if(!isMyOutletConnected){
        this.render('someTemplate', {   // the template to render
          into: 'application',          // the template to render into
          outlet: 'someOutlet',       // the name of the outlet in that template
          controller: "someController"  // the controller to use for the template
        });
    }
}

This solution could be more generic, since the method “isOutletOfApplicationViewConnected” is hardwired to my application view, but this is a good beginning and works for me.