Hi all,
Justin and chatted today about the big picture view for his very helpful
createRendererFunction() utility in Engage. This picks up from a conversation
that Michelle, Antranig, and I had during the framework sprint in Boulder back
in November.
In short, createRendererFunction() is intended so significantly simplify the
process of using the Renderer by automatically generating cutpoints from a list
of DOM Binder selectors. A pattern of use has been emerging in many of the
components that use it:
fluid.engage.myComponent = function (container, options) {
var that = fluid.initView(...);
that.render = fluid.engage.renderUtils.createRenderFunction(container,
that.options.selectors, {
selectorsToIgnore: ["foo", "bar"],
repeatedSelectors: ["bazes"]
});
};
It seems pretty clear that this is functionality we could offer free to users
as part of Infusion's own initView(). Here are some sketches of what it might
look like, to stimulate discussion. Antranig and Michelle, feel free to jump in
if I'm missing any details from our "Egg And I" conversation. I'll use the
Navigation List as an example.
1. Define a new special location in the options that house renderer-specific
selectors. The standard "selectors" object would be used for selectors that
aren't needed for rendering the initial view. We'll also need some kind of
notation to identify repeating selectors.
selectors: {
gridToggle: ".flc-navigationList-gridToggle",
linkContainer: ".flc-navigationList-linkContainer"
},
rendererSelectors: {
listItems: { // This is a fairly awkward notation for repeating selectors;
suggestions for alternatives?
selector: ".flc-navigationList-listItem",
repeat: true
},
image: ".flc-navigationList-image",
title: ".flc-navigationList-title",
description: ".flc-navigationList-desc"
}
2. We'd need to modify fluid.initView() to merge the "selectors" and
"rendererSelectors" into a unified DOM Binder. There's one catch here--some
selectors may not correctly match after rendering. For example, the description
element in Navigation List won't be rendered if it's not present in the model.
We'd need to implement some kind of selector-rewriting algorithm to make this
work ideally.
3. If rendererSelectors is present, attach a render() function to the
components (perhaps along with some way to customize the Renderer options as
well).
Thoughts?
Colin
---
Colin Clark
Technical Lead, Fluid Project
http://fluidproject.org
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