Question

I want to add a custom method to each of the Backbone classes – model, collection, router, view. How can I do that?

Here is what I am doing till now….

Backbone.Router.prototype.method1 = function() {
    console.log("I came here: router");
};
Backbone.View.prototype.method1 = function() {
    console.log("I came here: view");
};
Backbone.Model.prototype.method1 = function() {
    console.log("I came here: model");
};
Backbone.Collection.prototype.method1 = function() {
    console.log("I came here: collection");
};

I am guessing there must be a better and more elegant way to do this?

Update

Here’s how I implemented it finally. Thanks for the advice about logging @dira

http://jsfiddle.net/fsFNW/

Answer 1

To strictly reply to the question, check out http://jsfiddle.net/dira/bbnSE/

window.debug_factory = function(kind) {
    return function(message) {
      console.log("I came here: " + kind + " " + " " + message);
    }
};

Backbone.Model.prototype.debug      = window.debug_factory('model');
Backbone.Collection.prototype.debug = window.debug_factory('collection');

Course = Backbone.Model.extend({});
Courses = Backbone.Collection.extend({model: Course});

c1 = new Course({name: 'c1'});
courses = new Courses();
courses.add(c1);

c1.debug('a');
courses.debug('b');
c1.debug('c');

If you are using this for debugging, I recommend having a window.debug function and using more significant messages (“fetching”, “rendering” etc) as “I came here: model” is not very useful.