From: Mike Taylor Date: Mon, 10 Nov 2014 17:05:39 +0000 (+0000) Subject: Merge branch 'master' of ssh://git.indexdata.com/home/git/pub/mkws X-Git-Tag: 1.0.0~24 X-Git-Url: http://sru.miketaylor.org.uk/?a=commitdiff_plain;h=c3760a4dc849bf5ed75532aebf220bc25bc88cc0;hp=556c8f331856263f991cae4791e09606496bd474;p=mkws-moved-to-github.git Merge branch 'master' of ssh://git.indexdata.com/home/git/pub/mkws --- diff --git a/doc/index.markdown b/doc/index.markdown index 6c4424a..a366166 100644 --- a/doc/index.markdown +++ b/doc/index.markdown @@ -1,6 +1,6 @@ % MKWS: the MasterKey Widget Set % Mike Taylor -% October 2014 +% November 2014 Add metasearching to your web-site painlessly diff --git a/doc/mkws-developer.markdown b/doc/mkws-developer.markdown index a6ca04b..ffa831b 100644 --- a/doc/mkws-developer.markdown +++ b/doc/mkws-developer.markdown @@ -1,14 +1,25 @@ % The MasterKey Widget Set developer's guide % Mike Taylor -% 11 August 2014 +% November 2014 + + +Introduction +============ + +This manual is for people who want to build the widget set from +source, develop the widget set's core code, or (more likely) create +their own widgets as extensions to the main set. + +Those who want to use existing widgets should read +[The MKWS manual: embedded metasearching with the MasterKey Widget +Set](mkws-manual.html) instead. Required development tools ========================== -If you are building the widget set, as opposed to just using it, you -will need the following Debian packages (or their equivalents on your -operating system): +If you are building the widget set, you will need the following Debian +packages (or their equivalents on your operating system): $ sudo apt-get install curl git make unzip apache2 \ pandoc yui-compressor libbsd-resource-perl @@ -20,42 +31,86 @@ http://nodejs.org/download/ and build it yourself. You need both Node itself and its package manager NPM: `make install` puts them into `/usr/local/bin`. -To compile the default templates you'll need to install the stable -version of Handlebars. Currently it's at 2.0.0 and available by npm: - $ npm install handlebars@2.0.0 -g +Concepts +======== + +Code structure +-------------- + +The code of the widget set is in four main layers, described here from +the bottom up: + +1. The core code, which manages the set of widget teams, default +options, authentication onto the Service Proxy, and the creation of +widgets from HTML elements. +This code is in `mkws-core.js` + +2. The team code, which manages teams of widgets. This is responsible +for the collections of widgets that make up teams, event queues, and +handling search-and-retrieval events +This code is in `mkws-team.js` + +3. The generic widget code, which handles the creation of widget +objects, parsing configuration attributes from their HTML elements, +and firing off automatic searches. + +4. The code for individual widgets, which is specific to those +widgets. It often involves subscribing to events and responding to +them by setting the HTML of the widget element, but need not do +so. The code for many of the most important widgets is in +`mkws-widget-main.js`, but certain other widgets are defined in other +files beginning with the prefix `mkws-widget-`. + +In addition to this code, there are several source files containing +support code: + +* `mkws-filter.js` contains support routine implementing the +filter-set data structure, which contains information about which +filters (e.g. by target, or by facet) are in force. + +* `mkws-handlebars.js` contains Handlebars helpers which can be used +by the HTML templates. + +* `mkws-popup.js` defines a special widget for creating popup + windows. These may, but need not, contain other MKWS widgets, + forming a popup searching application. + +The final component of the source code is the set of Handlebars +templates, in the `templates` directory, which are used to emit the +HTML of the various widgets' contents. These are compiled into the +file `mkws-templates.js`. -Overview -======== -Core concepts -------------- +Defining new types of widget +---------------------------- 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 -`
` will be widgets of this type. +example, if you register a `foo` widget, elements like +`
` 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) { @@ -77,11 +132,11 @@ This simple widget illustrates several important points: * 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`). diff --git a/doc/mkws-manual.markdown b/doc/mkws-manual.markdown index 8fd07e3..d5332cb 100644 --- a/doc/mkws-manual.markdown +++ b/doc/mkws-manual.markdown @@ -1,6 +1,6 @@ % The MKWS manual: embedded metasearching with the MasterKey Widget Set % Mike Taylor -% October 2014 +% November 2014 Introduction