Dynamic regions in LayoutView

[JSteunou]

So I have a use case, so do @ianmstew and other folks on gitter.

Considering a sub app or module handling modals, I can have multiple modals. All the modal are in a LayoutView instance, the same for every modals.

In my controller I have dirty things like this

initialize: function(options) {
    this._regionsManager = new Marionette.RegionManager();

    // stuff...

},


_showModal: function(options) {
    var node = document.createElement('div'),
        view = new ModalView(options),
        regions = {};

    // add container to layout
    node.setAttribute('data-cid', view.cid);
    this._layout._ensureElement();
    this._layout.$el[0].appendChild(node);

    // set container as a region
    regions[view.cid] = '[data-cid="' + view.cid + '"]';
    this._regionsManager.addRegions(regions);

    // stuff...

}

My this._layout is just an instance of empty LayoutView. I should have put all the logic of dynamically adding node & regions inside, but eh... Thinking about it will chatting with Ian I was like: why this can be part of Marionette?

So, is it possible to add a kind of addDynamicRegion that would take a regionName and some options for the node like nodeName, className, etc... returning the node.

[samccone]

This is a call for a new view class, something that does not need to be in core, but can be easily pulled in. I don't think this complexity belongs in the root layout base class.

[JSteunou]

I dont know why but I thought the regionManager was private in LayoutView but it's not.

So yeah, a simple extend on LayoutView could do the job.

[ianmstew]

@samccone A region that handles multiple views could achieve a similar goal. Since you wouldn't consider a LayoutView with dynamic regions for core, would you be more favorable toward a multi-region?

[ianmstew]

I ask because, if core is more open to a multi-region than a dynamic layout, I'm sure @JSteunou and I could come up with something.

[samccone]

Yeah The right way to explore this is going to be in a labs repo I think and we can play with the API outside of core... we can always talk about pulling it in after

[JSteunou]

My need was not about multiple views in a single region, but I'm ok to drift on this subject. I can see mine is too specific and at the end I can reach it pretty easily.

@jmeas link to this https://github.com/joezimjs/MultiRegion maybe it can be useful

[jasonLaster]

Create a Repo and we'll pull it into Labs!

[samccone]

moving the work to here
https://github.com/MarionetteLabs/marionette.multiregion

[jasonLaster]

Nice