Design decisions in TodoMVC for Backbone Marionette example

Question

I am wondering why in TodoMVC Backbone Marionette, a Marionette.Layout was used for Footer instead of a simple ItemView like Header?

Also why use a CompositeView for TodoList.Views.ListView instead of a CollectionView?

Answer 1

I don't see any need for using a Layout in the footer. I think that the author thought that he maybe need to add some regions to the footer and he used a Layout, but in the actual implementation? No need.

About the CompositeView instead of CollectionView. The CollectionView doesn't allow you to have a template on it.

Imagine you need to show a list of clients but you don't want a simple <ul> to show the clients, you want some headers, some information and then the <ul> so with CompositeView you can add a template which can contain that header, information and of course the <ul>.

In that concrete case, he wants to show a checkbox with the list, so since he needs to show extra markup apart from the <ul> he needs a CompositeView to be able to add a template.

TL;DR Use a CollectionView if you don't need extra markup and if so, use a CompositeView