Ember 1.0 RC2

Today, we're releasing the second Release Candidate of Ember 1.0. As we said when we released RC1, the next few releases will be about bugfixes and improvements, and should not have any breaking changes.

Namespace Lookup for Controllers

It is now possible to look up controllers that are included in a namespace other than the main application namespace.

For example, when using the render helper:

{{render 'posts'}}

This will render the posts template with the controller App.PostsController, where App is the main application namespace.

If you want to use an alternative namespace, you can use a /-separated path.

{{render 'blog/posts'}}

This will render the blog/posts template with the controller Blog.PostsController.

Using Render With Multiple Models

In RC1, you could use {{render 'posts'}} to render the posts template using the app's instance of App.PostsController. Using render in this way will always render the template using the same singleton controller.

In RC2, we are adding the ability to render a template with a particular model: {{render 'post' post}}. When you supply a model, Ember.js will create a new instance of the App.PostController each time it is used.

This allows you to use {{render}} in a loop:

{{#each post in posts}}
  {{render 'post' post}}
{{/each}}

Unwrapping an ObjectController's Model

When passing an ObjectController as a parameter to the action or linkTo helpers, Ember now unwraps the underlying model and passes it through.

Most importantly, this allows you to add an itemController to {{#each}} without affecting action handlers in your controller or router.

If you have a template like this:

{{!-- posts.hbs --}}
<ul>
{{#each controller itemController='postItem'}}
  <li><button {{action 'selectPost' this}}>{{name}}</button></li>
{{/each}}
</ul>

Your App.PostsController would look like this:

App.PostsController = Ember.ArrayController.extend({
  needs: 'currentPost',

  selectPost: function(post) {
    // `post` here is an `App.Post`, not an
    // `App.PostItemController`
    this.set('controllers.currentPost.model', post);
  }
});

This should make using itemController less gotcha-prone.

Support for jQuery 2.0

Ember 1.0 RC2 supports jQuery 2.0.

This allows you to use a smaller, optimized build for newer browsers that is fully compatible with Ember.

If you're targeting both older IE and modern browsers, you can use the following snippet to get the best of both worlds:

<!--[if lt IE 9]>
    <script src="jquery-1.9.1.js"></script>
<![endif]-->
<!--[if gte IE 9]><!-->
    <script src="jquery-2.0.0.js"></script>
<!--<![endif]-->

Because jQuery 1.9 and 2.0 are API-compatible, this strategy will allow you to target the widest range of browsers, but ship a smaller build for modern browsers.

The future is here!

Changelog

The full CHANGELOG is available on Github, as always.