How to make linkTo dynamic in ember?

Answer 1

In the current Ember (1.10 as of this post), helpers now accept both quoted arguments or arguments that will be looked up as attributes in the current context. I believe this was changed in Ember 1.2 ( change log ).

If quoted, the argument will be used as a string:

{{#link-to 'post'}}Posts{{/link-to}}

If not quoted, the argument will be looked up in the current context:

{{#link-to routeName}}Go To '{{routeName}}'{{/link-to}}

This will be a link-to that points to whatever the routeName property currently is set to. This can be updated dynamically.

Here is an example JSBin showing this in action: http://emberjs.jsbin.com/nelafep/1/edit?html,css,js,output

Answer 2

You could register a simple Handlebars helper that wraps the linkTo helper.

var linkTo = Ember.Handlebars.helpers.linkTo;
Ember.Handlebars.registerHelper('myLinkTo', function(name, suffixPath) {
  var suffix = Ember.Handlebars.get(this, suffixPath);    
  arguments = [].slice.call(arguments, 2);
  arguments.unshift(name + '.' + suffix);

  return linkTo.apply(this, arguments);
});

Then in your template you could write:

{{#each menuItems}}
    <li>{{#myLinkTo "dashboard" name this}}{{name}}{{/myLinkTo}}</li>
{{/each}}

The helper will resolve the second argument and append it to the first, preceded by a dot.

Edit: this behaviour can now be achieved without a custom helper. See c4p's answer for the contemporary solution to this problem. The solution above was last tested with Ember 1.0.0-rc.1.