Development with MKWS consists primarily of defining new types of
widgets. These can interact with the core functionality is several
defined ways.
You cleare a new widget ttpe this 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
will be widgets of this type.
The function promotes a bare widget object (passed 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. Widgets have *no* behaviours that they have to provide:
you can make a doesn't-do-anything-at-all widget if you like:
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
appends the logged message to its node, as follows:
mkws.registerWidgetType('Log', function() {
var that = this;
this.team.queue("log").subscribe(function(teamName, timestamp, message) {
$(that.node).append(teamName + ": " + timestamp + message + "
");
});
});
This simple widget illustrates several important points:
* The base widget object (`this') has several baked-in properties and
methods that are available to individual widgets. These include
this.team (the team that this widget is a part of) and this.node
(the DOM element of the widget).
* The team object (`this.team') also has baked-in properties and
methods. These include the queue function, which takes an event-name
as its argument. It's possible to subscribe 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.