----------------------------
Development with MKWS consists primarily of defining new types of
-widgets. These can interact with the core functionality is several
-defined ways.
+widgets. This is done using exactly the same API as the the widgets
+that come as part of the set: they have no privileged access.
You create a new widget type by calling the `mkws.registerWidgetType`
function, passing in the widget name and a function. The name is used
to recognise HTML elements as being widgets of this type -- for
-example, if you register a `Foo` widget, elements like
-`<div class="mkwsFoo">` will be widgets of this type.
+example, if you register a `foo` widget, elements like
+`<div class="mkws-foo">` will become widgets of this type.
-The function promotes a bare widget object (passed as `this`) into a
+The function promotes a bare widget object (which is created by the
+core widget code and passed in as `this`) into a
widget of the appropriate type. MKWS doesn't use classes or explicit
prototypes: it just makes objects that have the necessary
behaviours. There are _no_ behaviours that Widgets are obliged to
provide: you can make a doesn't-do-anything-at-all widget if you like:
- mkws.registerWidgetType('Sluggard', function() {});
+ mkws.registerWidgetType('sluggard', function() {});
More commonly, widgets will subscribe to one or more events, so that
they're notified when something interesting happens. For example, the
-`Log` widget asks to be notified when a `log` event happens, and
+`log` widget asks to be notified when a `log` event happens, and
appends the logged message to its node, as follows:
- mkws.registerWidgetType('Log', function() {
+ mkws.registerWidgetType('log', function() {
var that = this;
this.team.queue("log").subscribe(function(teamName, timestamp, message) {
* You can add functionality to a widget by subscribing it to an
event's queue using `this.team.queue("EVENT").subscribe`. The
argument is a function which is called whenever the event is
- published. The arguments to the function are different for different
- events.
+ published. The arguments to the event-callback function are
+ different for different events.
* As with so much JavaScript programming, the value of the special
- variable `this` is lost inside the `subscribez` callback function,
+ variable `this` is lost inside the `subscribe` callback function,
so it must be saved if it's to be used inside that callback
(typically as a local variable named `that`).
-----------------------------------
Many widgets are simple specialisations of existing widgets. For
-example, the `Record` widget is the same as the `Records` widget
-except that it defaults to displaying a single record. It's defined as
-follows:
+example, the `images` widget is the same as the `records` widget
+except that it defaults to using the `images` template for displaying
+its result list. It's defined as follows:
- mkws.registerWidgetType('Record', function() {
- mkws.promotionFunction('Records').call(this);
- if (!this.config.maxrecs) this.config.maxrecs = 1;
+ mkws.registerWidgetType('images', function() {
+ mkws.promotionFunction('records').call(this);
+ if (!this.config.template) this.config.template = 'images';
});
Remember that when a promotion function is called, it's passed a base
the promotion function that's been registered for that type.
Once this has been done, the specialisations can be introduced. In
-this case, it's a very simple matter of changing the `maxrecs`
-configuration setting to 1 unless it's already been given an explicit
-value. (That would occur if the HTML used an element like `<div
-class="mkwsRecord" maxrecs="2">`, though it's not obvious why anyone
-would do that.)
+this case, it's a very simple matter of changing the `template`
+configuration setting to `'images'` unless it's already been given an
+explicit value. (That would occur if the HTML used an element like
+`<div class="mkws-images" template="my-images">` to use a customised
+template.
Reference Guide
widgets that can be omitted from the mobile version of a site.
* `expandValue()` --
- TODO: either document this or remove it from the API.
+ FIXME: either document this or remove it from the API.
* `subwidget(type, overrides, defaults)` --
Returns the HTML of a subwidget of the specified type, which
See for example the `Credo` widget defined in the example
area's `mkws-widget-credo.js` file. This uses several
invocations of `subwidget` to create a complex compound widget
- with numerous text, facet and image panes. TODO: rename this
+ with numerous text, facet and image panes. FIXME: rename this
widget and everything related to it.
In addition to these properties and methods of the bare widget object,
Events
------
-TODO: list of events that can be usefully subscribed to.
+FIXME: list of events that can be usefully subscribed to.
- - -
projects / mkws-moved-to-github.git / blobdiff