4 Development with MKWS consists primarily of defining new types of
5 widgets. These can interact with the core functionality is several
8 You create a new widget type by calling the mkws.registerWidgetType
9 function, passing in the widget name and a function. The name is used
10 to recognise HTML elements as being widgets of this type -- for
11 example, if you register a "Foo" widget, elements like <div
12 class="mkwsFoo"> will be widgets of this type.
14 The function promotes a bare widget object (passed as `this') into a
15 widget of the appropriate type. MKWS doesn't use classes or explicit
16 prototypes: it just makes objects that have the necessary
17 behaviours. Widgets have *no* behaviours that they have to provide:
18 you can make a doesn't-do-anything-at-all widget if you like:
20 mkws.registerWidgetType('Sluggard', function() {});
22 More commonly, widgets will subscribe to one or more events, so that
23 they're notified when something interesting happens. For example, the
24 "Log" widget asks to be notified when a "log" event happens, and
25 appends the logged message to its node, as follows:
27 mkws.registerWidgetType('Log', function() {
30 this.team.queue("log").subscribe(function(teamName, timestamp, message) {
31 $(that.node).append(teamName + ": " + timestamp + message + "<br/>");
35 This simple widget illustrates several important points:
37 * The base widget object (`this') has several baked-in properties and
38 methods that are available to individual widgets. These include
39 this.team (the team that this widget is a part of) and this.node
40 (the DOM element of the widget).
42 * The team object (`this.team') also has baked-in properties and
43 methods. These include the queue function, which takes an event-name
44 as its argument. It's possible to subscribe to an event's queue
45 using this.team.queue("EVENT").subscribe. The argument is a function
46 which is called whenever the event is published. The arguments to
47 the function are different for different events.
49 * The value of `this' is lost inside the subscribe callback, so it
50 must be saved if it's to be used inside that callback (typically as
51 a local variable named `that').
54 SPECIALISATION (INHERITANCE)
55 ============================
57 Many widgets are simple specialisations of existing widgets. For
58 example, the "Record" widget is the same as the "Records" widget
59 except that it defaults to displaying a single record. It's defined as
62 mkws.registerWidgetType('Record', function() {
63 mkws.promotionFunction('Records').call(this);
64 if (!this.config.maxrecs) this.config.maxrecs = 1;
67 Remember that when a promotion function is called, it's passed a base
68 widget object that's not specialised for any particular task. To make
69 a specialised widget, first promote that base widget into the type
70 that you want to specialise from -- in this case, "Records" -- using
71 the promotion function that's been registered for that type.
73 Once this has been done, the specialisations can be introduced. In
74 this case, it's a very matter of changing the "maxrecs" configuration
75 setting to 1 unless it's already been given an explicit value. (That
76 would occur if the HTML used an element like <div class="mkwsRecord"
77 maxrecs="2">, though it's not obvious why anyone would do that.)
80 WIDGET PROPERTIES AND METHODS
81 =============================
84 A string containing the type of the widget.
87 The team object to which this widget belongs. The team has
88 several additional important properties and methods, described
92 The DOM element of the widget
95 A table of configuration values for the widget. This table
96 inherits missing values from the team's configuration, which
97 in turn inherits from the top-level MKWS configuration, which
98 inherits from the default configuration. Instances of widgets
99 in HTML can set configuration items as HTML attributes, as in
100 <div class="mkwsRecords" maxrecs="2">.
102 String this.toString()
103 A function returning a string that briefly names this
104 widget. Can be useful in logging.
106 Void this.log(string)
107 A function to log a string for debugging purposes. The string
108 is written on the browser console, and also published to any
112 A function returning the value of the widget's HTML element.
118 Since the team object is supposed to be opaque to widgets, all access
119 is via the following API methods rather than direct access to
123 Bool team.submitted()
125 Num team.totalRecordCount()
126 Num team.currentPage();
127 String team.currentRecordId()
128 String team.currentRecordData()
129 Simple accessor functions that provide the ability to read
130 properties of the team.
133 Another accessor function, providing access to the array of
134 prevailing filters (which narrow the search results by means
135 of Pazpar2 filters and limits). This is really too complicated
136 an object for the widgets to be given access to, but it's
137 convenient to do it this way. See the "Navi" widget, which is
138 the only place it's used.
141 Access to the team's configuration settings. There is almost
142 certainly no reason to use this: the settings that haven't
143 been overridden are accessible via this.config.
145 Void team.set_sortOrder(string)
146 Void team.set_perpage(number)
147 "Setter" functions for the team's sortOrder and perpage
148 functions. Unlikely to be needed outside of the "Sort" and
151 Queue team.queue(eventName)
152 Returns the queue associated with the named event: this can be
153 used to subscribe to the event (or more rarely to publish it).
155 Bool team.targetFiltered(targetId)
156 Indicates whether the specified target has been filtered by
157 selection as a facet.
159 Void team.newSearch(query, sortOrder, maxrecs, perpage, limit, targets, targetfilter)
160 Starts a new search with the specified parameters. All but the
161 query may be omitted, in which case the prevailing defaults
165 Using the existing search, re-shows the result records after a
166 change in sort-order, per-page count, etc.
168 String team.recordElementId(recordId)
169 Utility function for converting a record identifer (returned
170 from Pazpar2) into a version suitable for use as an HTML
173 String team.renderDetails(recordData)
174 Utility function returns an HTML rendering of the record
175 represented by the specified data.
177 Template team.loadTemplate(templateName)
178 Loads (or retrieves from cache) the named Handlebars template,
179 and returns it in a form that can be invoked as a function,
182 Some of these methods either (A) are really too low-level and should
183 not be exposed, or (B) should be widget-level methods. The present
184 infelicities reflect the fact that some code that rightly belongs in
185 widgets is still in the team. When we finish migrating it, the widget
186 API should get simpler.