Triggering a change event on the parent observable when calling kendo.data.Model accept method

[Jack]

Although undocumented, the accept method is very useful in certain scenarios, for example when models have a load and save method. In such scenarios, you do not want an object to create a new object that replaces it in the parent viewModel.

var Contact = kendo.data.Model.define({
        id: 'id',
        fields: {
        ...
        },
        load: function(id) {
            var that = this;
           return $.ajax(...).done(function(data) {
                that.accept(data);
            });
        },
        save: function() {
            return $.ajax(...);
        }
    });

Model.accept is especially good in this case because the result is dirty = false, which you want since the data is fresh from database. Unfortunately, this does not cope with MVVM because no change event is raised.

var id=153, viewModel = kendo.observable({
    contact = new Contact({});
});
contact.load(id); //does not raise a change event on the viewModel

As a consequence, I have implemented a BaseModel to inherit from that overwrites the accept method as follows:

var BaseModel = Model.define({
    accept: function(data) {
        var that = this;
        //Call the base accept method
        Model.fn.accept.call(that, data);
        //Trigger a change event on the parent observable (possibly a viewModel)
        if ($.type(that.parent) === 'function') {
            var observable = that.parent();
            if (observable instanceof kendo.Observable) {
                $.each(Object.keys(observable), function(index, key) {
                    if(observable[key] instanceof that.constructor && observable[key].uid === that.uid) { //we have found our nested object in the parent observable
                        observable.trigger(CHANGE, { field: key }); //otherwise UI won't be updated via MVVM
                        return false; //once we have found the key and triggered the change event, break out of iteration
                    }
                });
            }
        }
    }
});

Is this a fix you would not recommend (any side effects)?
Is there an alternative use of the api that should be preferred?
Otherwise, is this something that could be fixed in Kendo UI?

[Jack]

I forgot to add that in the scenario I have been facing non editable fields prevent from using that.set in the load method.

[Kiril Nikolov]

Hi Jacques,

The accept() method will not fire a change event and this is by design as the change event will trigger the refresh, which is not a desired behavior.  About the workaround - if it achieves the desired behavior than I can not see a reason against using it.

Regards,
Kiril Nikolov
Telerik