autonotify_observe 1.0.0

observe auto notify support for Polymer 1.0

Auto notify support for (yet to be released) polymer-dart 1.0

a.k.a. : get rid of all those fancy set, add, remove, etc. calls

the problem

In polymer 1.0 you have to call a bunch of API (set and list accessor methods) on the polymer component whenever you have to apply a change on the model instead of changing the model directly. To make things worse if you have two or more independent components, for example two different views of the same model that are not inheriting the model one from the other by means of binding constructs (i.e. {{ }} or [[ ]]), then you will have to call those API on each of component.

Other then being very annoying this makes nearly impossible to follow consolidated patterns like MVC when building an app using vanilla polymer 1.0 : infact the controller (C) should always interact directly with the view (V) to update the model (M).

The opposite is true for polymer before 1.0 and that's one of the reason many appreciated that framework even though it was slower and less browser independent.

enters autonotify

This package will add support for autonotify in polymer-dart 1.0, making it possible to write your code more or less in the same way you used to do with previous polymer version.

You just have to annotate properties with @observable and extend/mixin the familiar Observable mixin, exactly like before, and polymer_autnotify will take care of calling polymer accessor API automatically for you.

To enable the autonotify feature just add the dependency to your project and add the mixin AutonotifyBehavior to your PolymerElement then annotate property with @observable (just like in the previous polymer version).

notes

Latest version of this library will not depend anymore on the old smoke mirroring system but requires a modified observe that you can find here, until the official one gets ported to reflectable or that branch gets merged.

using the transformer

This transfomer will replace polymer-dart one and adds support for observability.

Using this transformer you will not have to extend the JsProxy mixin or to annotate fields with @reflectable (see polymer docs) but instead you will have to use Observable mixin and @observable annotation (just like in the good ol' times):

class ThatBeautifulModelOfMine extends Observable {
 @observable String field1;
 @observable String field2;
}

All you have to do is to add it to your pubspec.yaml should appear like this :

...

transformers:
 - autonotify_observe:
    entry_points:
    - web/index.html

...

autonotify_observe transformer should also be placed in all your dependency libs that defines custom polymer components using autonotify and/or exporting models object extending/mixing Observe.