Backbone is an incredibly powerful framework, but it can't do everything. If you want to add a calendar widget, a rich text editor, or a node tree to your site, you'll probably want to use another library, which can provide such a component for you (for example, jQuery UI, TinyMCE, or jsTree). However, just because you want to use a tool other than Backbone, it doesn't mean you have to give up all of the convenience and power of Backbone classes. In fact, there are a number of benefits of creating a Backbone View class that wraps your third-party component.

First, wrapping the component in a View allows you to specify a common way of using this component. For instance, let's say you wanted to use the JQuery UI calendar widget (or datepicker) in your site. In jQuery UI, if you want your calendar to include a month-picking control, you have to supply a changeMonth: true option in every place in your code that creates a calendar:

// File #1
$('#datepicker1...