javascript - How to handle pagination with Knockout

Question

I have a div that is setup to bind to a observeableArray ,but I only want to show at most 50 items from that observeableArray at any given time. I want to handle this with pagination with a previous and next button along with indices on the page to allow users to cycle through pages of items from the collection.
I know I could probably do this with a computedObservable and a custom data binding but I'm not sure how to do it (I'm still a Knockout neophyte).
Can anyone point me in the right direction?

Here is my code (the JS is in TypeScript):

<div class="container-fluid">
    <div class="row-fluid">
        <div class="span12">
            <%=
            if params[:q]
              render 'active_search.html.erb'
            else
              render 'passive_search.html.erb'
            end
            %>
            <%= form_tag("/search", method: "get", :class => "form-search form-inline") do %>
            <%= label_tag(:q, "Search for:") %>
            <%= text_field_tag(:q, nil, class:"input-medium search-query") %>
            <%= submit_tag("Search", :class=>"btn") %>
            <% end %>

            <div class="media" data-bind="foreach: tweetsArray">
                <%= image_tag('twitter-icon.svg', :class=>"tweet_img", :style=>"display:inline;") %>
                <div class="media-body" style="display:inline;">
                    <h4 class="media-heading" data-bind="text: user.screen_name" style="display:inline;"></h4>
                    <span data-bind="text:text" style="display:inline;"></span> <br />
                    <span data-bind="text:'Created at '+created_at"></span> <br />
                </div>
            </div>

            <div class="pagination pagination-centered">
                <ul>
                    <li>
                        <a href="#">Prev</a>
                    </li>
                    <li>
                        <a href="#">1</a>
                    </li>
                    <li>
                        <a href="#">Next</a>
                    </li>
                </ul>
            </div>

        </div>
    </div>
</div>

<script>
    var viewModel = new twitterResearch.TweetViewModel();
    ko.applyBindings(viewModel);

    //TODO: notes to self, use custom binding for pagination along with a computed observable to determine where at in the list you are

    //document.onReady callback function
    $(function() {
        $.getJSON('twitter', {}, function(data) {
            viewModel.pushTweet(data);
            console.log(data.user);
        });
    });
</script>

declare var $: any;
declare var ko: any;

module twitterResearch {
    class Tweet {
        text: string;
        created_at: string;
        coordinates: string;
        user: string;
        entities: string;
        id: number;
        id_str: string;

        constructor(_text: string, _created_at: string, _coordinates: any, _user: any,
                    _entities: any, _id_str: string, _id: number){

            this.text = _text;
            this.created_at = _created_at;
            this.coordinates = _coordinates;
            this.user = _user;
            this.entities = _entities;
            this.id_str = _id_str;
            this.id = _id;
        }
    }

    export class TweetViewModel{

        tweetsArray: any;
        constructor()
        {
            this.tweetsArray = ko.observableArray([]);
        }

        //tweet is going to be the JSON tweet we return
        //from the server
        pushTweet(tweet)
        {
            var _tweet = new Tweet(tweet.text, tweet.created_at, tweet.coordinates,
                                    tweet.user, tweet.entities, tweet.id_str, tweet.id);
            this.tweetsArray.push(_tweet);
            this.tweetsArray.valueHasMutated();
        }
    }
}

Answer 1

Pagination is quite simple with Knockout. I would personally achieve it this way:

• Have an observableArray containing all your elements
• Have an observable containing the current page (initialized to 0)
• Have a variable declaring the number of elements per page
• Have a computed that returns the number of pages, calculated thanks to the number of elements per page and the total number of elements.
• Finally, add a computed that slices the array containing all the elements.

Given that, you can now add a function that increments (next) or decrements (previous) the current page.

Here is a quick example:

var Model = function() {
    var self = this;
    this.all = ko.observableArray([]);
    this.pageNumber = ko.observable(0);
    this.nbPerPage = 25;
    this.totalPages = ko.computed(function() {
        var div = Math.floor(self.all().length / self.nbPerPage);
        div += self.all().length % self.nbPerPage > 0 ? 1 : 0;
        return div - 1;
    });

    this.paginated = ko.computed(function() {
        var first = self.pageNumber() * self.nbPerPage;
        return self.all.slice(first, first + self.nbPerPage);
    });

    this.hasPrevious = ko.computed(function() {
        return self.pageNumber() !== 0;
    });

    this.hasNext = ko.computed(function() {
        return self.pageNumber() !== self.totalPages();
    });

    this.next = function() {
        if(self.pageNumber() < self.totalPages()) {
            self.pageNumber(self.pageNumber() + 1);
        }
    }

    this.previous = function() {
        if(self.pageNumber() != 0) {
            self.pageNumber(self.pageNumber() - 1);
        }
    }
}

You'll find a simple and complete example here: http://jsfiddle.net/LAbCv/ (might be a bit buggy, but the idea is there).