Combine linkTo and action helpers in Ember.js

Question

I need to combine linkTo and action helpers in Ember.js. My code is:

{{#link-to 'index'}}<span {{action 'clear'}}>Clear</span>{{/link-to}}

But I would like to make this something like this:

{{#link-to 'index' {{action 'clear'}} }}Clear{{/link-to}}

And also:

<li>
    {{#link-to 'support'}}
        <span {{action 'myAction' 'support'}}>Support</span>
    {{/link-to}}
</li>

To:

<li>
    {{#link-to 'support' {{action 'myAction' 'support'}} }}Support{{/link-to}}
</li>

How can I achieve this?

Solution

Check my answer for Ember 2.0 compatible, OK for SEO solution.

Answer 1

Update: See Michael Lang's comment below for Ember 1.8.1+

The problem with Myslik's answer (not using link-to at all but instead using an action and then transitionToRoute) is that it's useless for SEO, search engine bots will see nothing.

If you want what your link is pointing to to be indexed, it's easiest to have a good old <a href=x> in there. It's best to use link-to so that your link URLs are kept in sync with your route URLs. The solution I use gives both an action to do the work and a handy link-to to index the pages.

I override some functionality of Ember.LinkView:

Ember.LinkView.reopen({
  action: null,
  _invoke: function(event){
    var action = this.get('action');
    if(action) {
      // There was an action specified (in handlebars) so take custom action
      event.preventDefault(); // prevent the browser from following the link as normal
      if (this.bubbles === false) { event.stopPropagation(); }

      // trigger the action on the controller
      this.get('controller').send(action, this.get('actionParam'));
      return false; 
    }           

    // no action to take, handle the link-to normally
    return this._super(event);
  }
});

Then I can specify which action to take and what to pass the action in Handlebars:

<span {{action 'view' this}}>
  {{#link-to 'post' action='view' actionParam=this}}
    Post Title: {{title}}
  {{/link-to}}
</span>

In the controller:

App.PostsIndexController = Ember.ArrayController.extend({
  actions: {
    view: function(post){
      this.transitionToRoute('post', post);
    }
  }
}

This way, when I cache a rendered copy of the page and serve that to an indexing bot, the bot will see a real link with an URL and follow it.

(note also that transitionTo is now deprecated in favour of transitionToRoute)

Answer 2

Ember's link-to tags use routes to open new views, so you can perform whatever functionality you wanted to put in the link's 'action' attribute in the setupController method of the target route instead of in a controller action.

See here in the Ember guide: http://emberjs.com/guides/routing/setting-up-a-controller/

This only works if you want to perform the action every time the route is accessed, however, as opposed to with specific links.

Make sure to include the controller.set('model', model); line along with whatever else you put in there.