aurelia-breeze

This library is a plugin for the Aurelia framework. It's goal is to make using Breeze with Aurelia as seamless as possible.

What's included:

• An adapter for observing Breeze entities.
• A Breeze ajax adapter that uses Aurelia's fetch-client.
• A light-weight substitute for Breeze's dependency on Q that uses ES6 promises.
• Automatic form validation for Breeze entities. Info here.

FAQ

Why does Aurelia need an adapter to observe Breeze entities?

Breeze entity properties have defined getters and setters created using Object.defineProperty. Properties defined in this manner are incompatible with Object.observe, Aurelia's preferred way to do data-binding. In situations where Object.observe cannot be used Aurelia falls back to dirty-checking which can be less performant. We can avoid dirty-checking by providing Aurelia with an adapter that knows to subscribe to the Breeze propertyChanged event in order to observe Breeze entities.

Which model libraries are supported with this plugin?

Breeze can create entities using a variety of model binding libraries such as Knockout and Backbone which provide great data-binding support for legacy browsers. Chances are if you're using Aurelia, legacy browser support is not a concern. The aurelia-breeze plugin only supports Breeze's native model library: "backingStore". Upon installation this plugin will make "backingStore" the default model library:

breeze.config.initializeAdapterInstance("modelLibrary", "backingStore", true);

Do I need jQuery?

No. Breeze doesn't force you to use a particular ajax implementation. By default it uses jQuery however it can be configured to use Angular's $http or even a custom ajax adapter. This is where we come in... this plugin provides Breeze with an ajax implementation that uses Aurelia's fetch-client.

Do I need Q?

No. Normally Breeze depends on Q for it's Promise implementation. Since you're using Aurelia which depends upon ES6 promises we can assume a Promise implementation is already defined. This means we can give Breeze an object that has a Q style API but uses ES6 Promises behind the scenes.

Are detached entities supported?

Yes. This is a beta feature and may be removed in a future release. More info here.

Using The Adapter

This guide uses jspm and assumes you've already setup your Aurelia project according to the guide here.

• Use jspm to install aurelia-breeze.

jspm install aurelia-breeze

• Install Breeze:

jspm install breeze

• Use the plugin in your app's main.js:

export function configure(aurelia) {
  aurelia.use
    .standardConfiguration()
    .plugin('aurelia-breeze');  // <--------<<

  aurelia.start().then(a => a.setRoot());
}

• Now you're ready to use Breeze in your Aurelia application:

import breeze from 'breeze';

var query = new breeze.EntityQuery();
...

Dependencies

• aurelia-binding
• aurelia-dependency-injection
• aurelia-fetch-client
• breeze

Platform Support

This library can be used in the browser only.

Building The Code

To build the code, follow these steps.

• Ensure that NodeJS is installed. This provides the platform on which the build tooling runs.
• From the project folder, execute the following command:

npm install

• Ensure that Gulp is installed. If you need to install it, use the following command:

npm install -g gulp

• To build the code, you can now run:

gulp build

• You will find the compiled code in the dist folder, available in three module formats: AMD, CommonJS and ES6.

• See gulpfile.js for other tasks related to generating the docs and linting.

Running The Tests

To run the unit tests, first ensure that you have followed the steps above in order to install all dependencies and successfully build the library. Once you have done that, proceed with these additional steps:

• Ensure that the Karma CLI is installed. If you need to install it, use the following command:

npm install -g karma-cli

• Ensure that jspm is installed. If you need to install it, use the following commnand:

npm install -g jspm

• Install the client-side dependencies with jspm:

jspm install

• You can now run the tests with this command:

karma start