How to template If-Else structures in data-bound views?
There are a couple different ways that you can handle this type of code.
with an if/ifnot combination like you are now. This works fine and is not terribly verbose.
Michael Best's switch/case binding (https://github.com/mbest/knockout-switch-case) is quite flexible and can let you easily handle this and more complicated ones (more states than true/false).
Another option is to use dynamic templates. You would bind an area to one or more templates with the template name being used based on an observable. Here is a post that I wrote on this topic a while back: http://www.knockmeout.net/2011/03/quick-tip-dynamically-changing.html. In your scenario, it might look like:
<td data-bind="template: $root.getCellTemplate"></td>
<script id="cellEditTmpl" type="text/html">
<input type="text" name="email" data-bind="value: email" />
</script>
<script id="cellTmpl" type="text/html">
<span data-bind="text: email"></span>
</script>
The getCellTemplate
function could live wherever, but would be given the item ($data) as the first argument and would return the name of the template to use.
One approach is to use named templates (which can support passing arguments):
<!-- ko template: isEdit() ? 'emailEdit' : 'emailDisplay' --><!-- /ko -->
<script id="emailEdit" type="text/html">
<td><input type="text" name="email" data-bind="value: email" /></td>
</script>
<script id="emailDisplay" type="text/html">
<td data-bind="text: email"></td>
</script>
Another option is use my switch/case plugin, which would work like this:
<!-- ko switch -->
<!-- ko case: isEdit -->
<td><input type="text" name="email" data-bind="value: email" /></td>
<!-- /ko -->
<!-- ko case: $else -->
<td data-bind="text: email"></td>
<!-- /ko -->
<!-- /ko -->
To avoid recalculation of knockout binding when using combination of if: / ifnot: you can use them in conjunction with 'with:' construction
<!-- ko with: $data.DoSomePerformanceCriticalWork($data.SomeParameter()) -->
<!-- ko if: $data.Condition() -->
... some markup ...
<!-- /ko -->
<!-- ko ifnot: $data.Condition() -->
... some markup ...
<!-- /ko -->
<!-- /ko -->