Cannot get jqueryui tabs to work properly in Ember view - jquery-ui

Question

I'm trying to run up a little prototype in Ember.JS at the moment with a view to completely re-writing the UI of a web application as an Ember Application running against a WebAPI, but although I've managed to get Ember running OK, I cannot get jqueryui to initialise the tabs correctly.
It seems to work fine if within the view I put static data for tabs to be created from, but if I'm using dynamic data then it just doesn't work.
I have an Ember view template
<script type="text/x-handlebars" id="index">
<div id="tabs" class="ui-tabs">
<ul>
{{#each model}}
<li>
<span class="ui-icon ui-icon-person"></span>
<a {{bindAttr href="route"}} {{bindAttr title="tabTitle"}}><span>{{title}}</span></a>
</li>
{{/each}}
</ul>
{{#each model}}
<div {{bindAttr id="tabTitle"}}>
<p>
Retrieving Data - {{title}}
</p>
</div>
{{/each}}
</div>
</script>
and a view
App.IndexView = Ember.View.extend({
templateName: 'index',
didInsertElement: function () {
var tabs = $("#tabs").tabs();
}
});
and a model
App.Section = DS.Model.extend({
name: DS.attr('string'),
title: DS.attr('string'),
tabTitle: function () {
return 'tab-' + this.get('name');
}.property("name"),
route: function () {
return '#' + this.get('tabTitle');
}.property("tabTitle")
});
App.Section.FIXTURES = [
{
id: 1,
name: 'home',
title: 'Home'
},
{
id: 2,
name: 'users',
title: 'Users'
}
];
It appears to generate the HTML correctly (from checking in Firebug), but this does not work, where as if I replace the template with
<script type="text/x-handlebars" id="index">
<div id="tabs" class="ui-tabs">
<ul>
<li>
<span class="ui-icon ui-icon-person"></span>
<span>Home</span>
</li>
<li>
<span class="ui-icon ui-icon-person"></span>
<span>Users</span>
</li>
</ul>
<div id="tab-home">
<p>
Retrieving Data - Home
</p>
</div>
<div id="tab-users">
<p>
Retrieving Data - Users
</p>
</div>
</div>
</script>
it works perfectly.
I'm assuming that it's something to do with the DOM not being completely rendered by the time the tabs are initialised, but everything I can find says that didInsertElement is the place to do it, and I have had time to dig deeper yet.
I'd be grateful for any ideas.
Edit: I've managed to make this work in a fashion by doing the following:
App.IndexView = Ember.View.extend({
templateName: 'index',
didInsertElement: function () {
Ember.run.next(this, function () {
if (this.$('#tab-users').length > 0) {
var tabs = $('#tabs').tabs();
} else {
Ember.run.next(this.didInsertElement);
}
});
},
});
The problem with this is that 1) it requires me to know what one of the last elements that will be written to the view is called (and obviously with dynamic data I won't necessarily know that), so that I can keep checking for it, and 2) the inefficiency of this technique makes me want to scream!
In addition, we get a good old FoUC (Flash of Unstyled Content) after things have been rendered, but before we then get JQueryUI to style them correctly.
Any suggestions gratefully received.

Answer 1

It's still not nice... but this at least does work, and is reasonably efficient...
From Ember.js - Using a Handlebars helper to detect that a subview has rendered I discovered how to write a trigger, and because of the way that the run loop seems to work, inserting the trigger in the last loop on the page causes it to be called n times, but only after the loop is complete, so a quick state check "hasBeenTriggered" ensures that you only execute the delgate function once.
My code now looks like this:
<script type="text/x-handlebars" id="index">
<div id="tabs" class="ui-tabs">
<ul>
{{#each model}}
<li>
<span class="ui-icon ui-icon-person"></span>
<a {{bindAttr href="route"}} {{bindAttr title="tabTitle"}}><span>{{title}}</span></a>
</li>
{{/each}}
</ul>
{{#each model}}
<div {{bindAttr id="tabTitle"}}>
<p>
Retrieving Data - {{title}}
</p>
</div>
{{trigger "triggered"}}
{{/each}}
</div>
</script>
with the trigger
Ember.Handlebars.registerHelper('trigger', function (evtName, options) {
options = arguments[arguments.length - 1];
var hash = options.hash,
view = options.data.view,
target;
view = view.get('concreteView');
if (hash.target) {
target = Ember.Handlebars.get(this, hash.target, options);
} else {
target = view;
}
Ember.run.next(function () {
target.trigger(evtName);
});
});
and view
App.IndexView = Ember.View.extend({
templateName: 'index',
hasBeenTriggered: false,
triggered: function () {
if (!this.get("hasBeenTriggered")) {
var tabs = $('#tabs').tabs();
this.set("hasBeenTriggered", true);
}
}
});
I'd love to know if there's a better way of doing this, as this still doesn't get round the FOUC problem either (which again can be done with more JS hacks)... :(