Alias a model in a backbone collection

Question

Is there a way to create an alias in a Backbone Collection?
So collection.get("currentSite") would return the model with id "stackOverflow". Also set and events etc. would work the same.
The purpose is to reference a state model for the current host, without looking up the current id every time the model is needed.

Answer 1

You could add the alias attribute to your model

Then you can get the model from your collection using where

var mySite = collection.where({alias: "currentSite"})

Answer 2

Not a direct answer to you question, but you might be able to solve your problem using Backbone.Picky https://github.com/derickbailey/backbone.picky

It makes a collection have a "selected" model, so as your state changes, simply set the selected attribute on the correct model. Later, you can fetch the selected model easily (and the "get", "set", etc. will work as usual).