MVC Best Practice Question

[mminnie]

I am getting a better grasp on ExtJS 4 and the MVC pattern. I'd like to know from you experts if what I am thinking is the "best practice" for the controller creating views.

As an example, say I have an app with one main viewport containing all other application views such as the menu toolbar, buttons, grids, etc. One of the main viewport buttons should create a tab in a tabpanel to display a list of the users. This user list view is controlled by a User controller and the tabpanel is contained in the mainviewport and controlled by the mainviewport controller.

At first, I had code in the User controller creating the user list then adding it to the mainviewport tabpanel from within the User controller. I'm thinking the best practice should have the logic all contained in controller controlling the items in the mainviewport view. Something like:

Mainviewport Controller


Ext.define('LB.controller.Mainviewport', {
extend: 'Ext.app.Controller',
views: ['Mainviewport'],
....
init: function() {
this.control({
'mainviewport button[action=showuserlist]': {
click: this.onUserlistClick
}
});
....
onUserlistClick: function(button) {
// Create tab in view
userlisttab = this.getMaintabpanel().add({
title: 'User List',
});this.getController('Users').showUserList(userlisttab) // Have user controller add created component to passed in target
}
....


User controller


Ext.define('LB.controller.Users', {
extend: 'Ext.app.Controller',
views: ['user.List'],
stores: ['Users'],
models: ['User'],
......
showUserList: function(target) {
target.add(Ext.create('LB.view.user.List')); // Create view here and add to "target" container
},
....


This keeps all other views (ie the Mainviewport tabpanel) hidden from the User controller and user.List view. Both methods would work, I'm just thinking the method listed above makes the User controller less coupled with the mainviewport.

Is this good thinking?

[mitchellsimoens]

I would agree. There are many definitions of MVC. A strict one would say that there should be no logic in the view, even the logic to say what items that view should have. The issue with this is then the controller has intimate knowledge of the view which is also a concern so there should be a happy medium or abstraction to get around this. The road you are taking is an abstraction to help minimize the issue of deep-coupled controller <-> view.

[mminnie]

I take that answer from the expert of experts to mean "It is a good way to go." :D