1 % The MasterKey Widget Set developer's guide
9 This manual is for people who want to build the widget set from
10 source, develop the widget set's core code, or (more likely) create
11 their own widgets as extensions to the main set.
13 Those who want to use existing widgets should read
14 [The MKWS manual: embedded metasearching with the MasterKey Widget
15 Set](mkws-manual.html) instead.
18 Required development tools
19 ==========================
21 If you are building the widget set, you will need the following Debian
22 packages (or their equivalents on your operating system):
24 $ sudo apt-get install curl git make unzip apache2 \
25 pandoc yui-compressor libbsd-resource-perl
27 You also need Node.js, but unfortunately the `node-js` package is not
28 available for Debian wheezy. You can either get it from
29 wheezy-backports or download the source from
30 http://nodejs.org/download/ and build it yourself. You need both Node
31 itself and its package manager NPM: `make install` puts them into
41 The code of the widget set is in four main layers, described here from
44 1. The core code, which manages the set of widget teams, default
45 options, authentication onto the Service Proxy, and the creation of
46 widgets from HTML elements.
47 This code is in `mkws-core.js`
49 2. The team code, which manages teams of widgets. This is responsible
50 for the collections of widgets that make up teams, event queues, and
51 handling search-and-retrieval events
52 This code is in `mkws-team.js`
54 3. The generic widget code, which handles the creation of widget
55 objects, parsing configuration attributes from their HTML elements,
56 and firing off automatic searches.
58 4. The code for individual widgets, which is specific to those
59 widgets. It often involves subscribing to events and responding to
60 them by setting the HTML of the widget element, but need not do
61 so. The code for many of the most important widgets is in
62 `mkws-widget-main.js`, but certain other widgets are defined in other
63 files beginning with the prefix `mkws-widget-`.
65 In addition to this code, there are several source files containing
68 * `mkws-filter.js` contains support routine implementing the
69 filter-set data structure, which contains information about which
70 filters (e.g. by target, or by facet) are in force.
72 * `mkws-handlebars.js` contains Handlebars helpers which can be used
73 by the HTML templates.
75 * `mkws-popup.js` defines a special widget for creating popup
76 windows. These may, but need not, contain other MKWS widgets,
77 forming a popup searching application.
79 The final component of the source code is the set of Handlebars
80 templates, in the `templates` directory, which are used to emit the
81 HTML of the various widgets' contents. These are compiled into the
82 file `mkws-templates.js`.
86 Defining new types of widget
87 ----------------------------
89 Development with MKWS consists primarily of defining new types of
90 widgets. These can interact with the core functionality is several
93 You create a new widget type by calling the `mkws.registerWidgetType`
94 function, passing in the widget name and a function. The name is used
95 to recognise HTML elements as being widgets of this type -- for
96 example, if you register a `Foo` widget, elements like
97 `<div class="mkwsFoo">` will be widgets of this type.
99 The function promotes a bare widget object (passed as `this`) into a
100 widget of the appropriate type. MKWS doesn't use classes or explicit
101 prototypes: it just makes objects that have the necessary
102 behaviours. There are _no_ behaviours that Widgets are obliged to
103 provide: you can make a doesn't-do-anything-at-all widget if you like:
105 mkws.registerWidgetType('Sluggard', function() {});
107 More commonly, widgets will subscribe to one or more events, so that
108 they're notified when something interesting happens. For example, the
109 `Log` widget asks to be notified when a `log` event happens, and
110 appends the logged message to its node, as follows:
112 mkws.registerWidgetType('Log', function() {
115 this.team.queue("log").subscribe(function(teamName, timestamp, message) {
116 $(that.node).append(teamName + ": " + timestamp + message + "<br/>");
120 This simple widget illustrates several important points:
122 * The base widget object (`this`) has several baked-in properties and
123 methods that are available to individual widgets. These include
124 `this.team` (the team that this widget is a part of) and `this.node`
125 (the DOM element of the widget). See below for a full list.
127 * The team object (`this.team`) also has baked-in properties and
128 methods. These include the `queue` function, which takes an event-name
129 as its argument. See below for a full list.
131 * You can add functionality to a widget by subscribing it to an
132 event's queue using `this.team.queue("EVENT").subscribe`. The
133 argument is a function which is called whenever the event is
134 published. The arguments to the function are different for different
137 * As with so much JavaScript programming, the value of the special
138 variable `this` is lost inside the `subscribez` callback function,
139 so it must be saved if it's to be used inside that callback
140 (typically as a local variable named `that`).
143 Widget specialisation (inheritance)
144 -----------------------------------
146 Many widgets are simple specialisations of existing widgets. For
147 example, the `Record` widget is the same as the `Records` widget
148 except that it defaults to displaying a single record. It's defined as
151 mkws.registerWidgetType('Record', function() {
152 mkws.promotionFunction('Records').call(this);
153 if (!this.config.maxrecs) this.config.maxrecs = 1;
156 Remember that when a promotion function is called, it's passed a base
157 widget object that's not specialised for any particular task. To make
158 a specialised widget, you first promote that base widget into the type
159 that you want to specialise from -- in this case, `Records` -- using
160 the promotion function that's been registered for that type.
162 Once this has been done, the specialisations can be introduced. In
163 this case, it's a very simple matter of changing the `maxrecs`
164 configuration setting to 1 unless it's already been given an explicit
165 value. (That would occur if the HTML used an element like `<div
166 class="mkwsRecord" maxrecs="2">`, though it's not obvious why anyone
174 Widget properties and methods
175 -----------------------------
177 The following properties and methods exist in the bare widget object
178 that is passed into `registerWidgetType`'s callback function, and can
179 be used by the derived widget.
181 * `String this.type` --
182 A string containing the type of the widget.
184 * `Team this.team` --
185 The team object to which this widget belongs. The team has
186 several additional important properties and methods, described
189 * `DOMElement this.node` --
190 The DOM element of the widget
192 * `Hash this.config` --
193 A table of configuration values for the widget. This table
194 inherits missing values from the team's configuration, which
195 in turn inherits from the top-level MKWS configuration, which
196 inherits from the default configuration. Instances of widgets
197 in HTML can set configuration items as HTML attributes: for
198 example, the HTML element
199 `<div class="mkwsRecords" maxrecs="10">`.
200 creates a widget for which `this.config.maxrecs` is set to 10.
202 * `String this.toString()` --
203 A function returning a string that briefly names this
204 widget. Can be useful in logging.
206 * `Void this.log(string)` --
207 A function to log a string for debugging purposes. The string
208 is written on the browser console, and also published to any
209 subcribers to the `log` event.
211 * `String this.value()` --
212 A function returning the value of the widget's HTML element.
214 * `VOID autosearch()` --
215 Registers that this kind of widget is one that requires an
216 automatic search to be run for it if an `autosearch` attribute
217 is provided on the HTML element. This is appropriate for
218 widgets such as `Records` and `Facet` that display some part
221 * `VOID hideWhenNarrow()` --
222 Registers that this widget should hide itself when the page
223 becomes "narrow" -- that is, fewer pixels in width that the
224 threshhold value specified by the top-level configuration item
225 `responsive_design_width`. Should be used for "unimportant"
226 widgets that can be omitted from the mobile version of a site.
229 TODO: either document this or remove it from the API.
231 * `subwidget(type, overrides, defaults)` --
232 Returns the HTML of a subwidget of the specified type, which
233 can then be inserted into the widget using the
234 `this.node.html` function. The subwidget is given the same
235 attributes at the parent widget that invokes this function,
236 except where overrides are passed in. If defaults are also
237 provided, then these are used when the parent widget provides
238 no values. Both the `overrides` and `defaults` arguments are
239 hashes: the latter is optional.
241 See for example the `Credo` widget defined in the example
242 area's `mkws-widget-credo.js` file. This uses several
243 invocations of `subwidget` to create a complex compound widget
244 with numerous text, facet and image panes. TODO: rename this
245 widget and everything related to it.
247 In addition to these properties and methods of the bare widget object,
248 some kinds of specific widget add other properties of their own. For
249 example, the `Builder` widget uses a `callback` property as the
250 function that it use to publish the widget definition that it
251 constructs. This defaults to the builtin function `alert`, but can be
252 overridden by derived widgets such as `ConsoleBuilder`.
258 Since the team object is supposed to be opaque to widgets, all access
259 is via the following API methods rather than direct access to
262 * `String team.name()`
263 * `Bool team.submitted()`
264 * `Num team.perpage()`
265 * `Num team.totalRecordCount()`
266 * `Num team.currentPage();`
267 * `String team.currentRecordId()`
268 * `String team.currentRecordData()`
270 These are all simple accessor functions that provide the ability to
271 read properties of the team.
273 * `Array team.filters()` --
274 Another accessor function, providing access to the array of
275 prevailing filters (which narrow the search results by means
276 of Pazpar2 filters and limits). This is really too complicated
277 an object for the widgets to be given access to, but it's
278 convenient to do it this way. If you must insist on using
279 this, see the `Navi` widget, which is the only place it's used.
281 * `Bool team.targetFiltered(targetId)` --
282 Indicates whether the specified target has been filtered by
283 selection as a facet. This is used only by the `Facet` widget,
284 and there is probably no reason for you to use it.
286 * `Hash team.config()` --
287 Access to the team's configuration settings. There is almost
288 certainly no reason to use this: the settings that haven't
289 been overridden are accessible via `this.config`.
291 * `Void team.set_sortOrder(string)`, `Void team.set_perpage(number)` --
292 "Setter" functions for the team's sortOrder and perpage
293 functions. Unlikely to be needed outside of the `Sort` and
296 * `Queue team.queue(eventName)` --
297 Returns the queue associated with the named event: this can be
298 used to subscribe to the event (or more rarely to publish it).
300 * `Void team.newSearch(query, sortOrder, maxrecs, perpage, limit, targets, targetfilter)` --
301 Starts a new search with the specified parameters. All but the
302 query may be omitted, in which case the prevailing defaults
305 * `Void team.reShow()` --
306 Using the existing search, re-shows the result records after a
307 change in sort-order, per-page count, etc.
309 * `String team.recordElementId(recordId)` --
310 Utility function for converting a record identifer (returned
311 from Pazpar2) into a version suitable for use as an HTML
314 * `String team.renderDetails(recordData)` --
315 Utility function returns an HTML rendering of the record
316 represented by the specified data.
318 * `Template team.loadTemplate(templateName)` --
319 Loads (or retrieves from cache) the named Handlebars template,
320 and returns it in a form that can be invoked as a function,
323 Some of these methods either (A) are really too low-level and should
324 not be exposed, or (B) should be widget-level methods. The present
325 infelicities reflect the fact that some code that rightly belongs in
326 widgets is still in the team. When we finish migrating it, the widget
327 API should get simpler.
333 TODO: list of events that can be usefully subscribed to.
338 Copyright (C) 2013-2014 Index Data ApS. <http://indexdata.com>