Can't center an element generated from XMLHttpRequest - javascript

I am building a fairly complex web app. The main page loads and then all menu items (300+), form submissions, ect. are loaded via XMLHttpRequest. I have a basic "panel" template that allows the the panel to look and act (drag, resize, ect.) like a child window of the app. I load all XMLHttpRequest requested pages into the the content section of the "panel" template.
The problem I am running into is that if I try to center the new "panel" it does not seem to find the new "panels" size. My code is setup so that when a menu item is clicked it runs a function that calls the XMLHttpRequest function, the originating function passes to the XMLHttpRequest a callback function. The callback function then clones the panel template, so I can change several element attributes, I then append the response to the cloned "panel" template, in a document fragment. And then all that is appended to the displayed HTML, after which I find the new "panels" size and try to center it but it always fails.
As each function has a lot more going on than just what I spelled out above what follows is hopefully an accurate striped down version of the relevant parts of the code.
The XMLHttpRequest function in nothing unusual, and once it has a successful response the callback will run the "OpenPanel" function (see below).
Callback function:
function OpenPanel(e, response)
{
var rescontent = response.querySelector('.content');
var newid = rescontent.getAttribute('data-id');
var titlebar = rescontent.getAttribute('data-title');
var frag = document.createDocumentFragment();
var clonepanel = doc.getElementById('paneltemplate').cloneNode(true);
clonepanel.id = newid;
frag.appendChild(clonepanel);
frag.querySelector('.titlebar').innerHTML = titlebar;
var replacelem = frag.querySelector('.content');
replacelem.parentNode.replaceChild(rescontent, replacelem);
doc.getElementById('mainbody').appendChild(frag);
var newpanel = document.getElementById(newid);
newpanel.addEventListener('mousedown', PanelSelect, true);
newpanel.style.cssText = PanelPosition(newpanel);
}
PanelPosition function:
function PanelPosition(panel)
{
var lh = panel.clientHeight;
var lw = panel.clientWidth;
var wh = panel.parentNode.clientHeight;
var ww = panel.parentNode.clientWidth;
var paneltoppos = (wh - lh) / 2;
var panelleftpos = (ww - lw) / 2;
return 'top: ' + paneltoppos + 'px; left: ' + panelleftpos + 'px;';
}
I tried using setTimeout with a delay of 1ms, but that causes the panel to flash on the screen, in the wrong position, before its moved. Which from my perspective makes the app feel cheap or like only a second best effort was given. And even if it didn't flash setTimeout seems like a hack more than a solution.
I have tried this code with a few different "pages" (xhr requests) and I almost get the sense that the XMLHttpRequest hasn't finished loading when the callback function is ran (which I doubt is possible). For example, I put
console.log('top: '+wh+' - '+lh+'(wh - lh) left: '+ww+' - '+lw+'(ww - lw)');
in the "PanelPosition" function, and without the setTimeout the panel height (lh) and width (lw) are between 100 and 200 pixels. But with setTimeout the panels usually are over 500 pixels in height and width. And of course that severely effects where centered is.
I have tried several searches over the last few days but nothing has turned up. So if there is a good post or article describing the problem and the solution, feel free point me to it.
Should note that as I am running the web app exclusively in node-webkit/nw.js (chromium/webkit browser) there is no need for a cross-browser solution.

Well I guess I am going to answer my own question.
While looking for something completely unrelated I found this this SO post. The accepted answer gives a clue that explains the issue.
Unfortunately, it seems that you have to hand the controls back to the browser (using setTimeout() as you did) before the final dimensions can be observed; luckily, the timeout can be very short.
Basically javascript does not draw the appended element till the end of the function call. So setTimeout is one solution to my problem. But, there is a second solution. If I just have to wait till the end of the function then lets make that one heck of a small (focused) function. So I just moved all the code need to create the appended "panel" to a totally separate function. And in so doing I solved another pending issue.
Edit:
Or not. Apparently a separate function doesn't work now, but it did before I posted. Who knows maybe I didn't save the change before reloading the page.

Related

Starting from random pages in Google Web Designer

I've been using Google Web Designer for a few months and I have a question. I don't know if it's possible to do in GWD:
I want the index.html file to load a different random page, choosing between 3 pages. When you hit reload, it should load another random page, and so on. The pages don't need to appear in order. I'm trying to find out how this can be done but I had no success so far.
This can be accomplished with a custom JavaScript event handler.
The <gwd-doubleclick> element fires an adinitialized event before any content is displayed, which we can use to make sure our changes are applied before the user sees the first page. It also provides a .goToPage(n) method which we can use to switch pages. (goToPage has additional arguments that can be used to control animation between pages, but we can ignore those because we want the default behaviour of instantly jumping.)
Start by adding a new event handler.
target: document.body
event: Google Ad: Ad Initialized
action: Custom: Add Custom Action
configuration: a name of your choice (such as gwd.goToRandomPage), for the following code:
var pages = 3; // adjust as appropriate
var targetPage = Math.floor(Math.random() * pages);
event.target.goToPage(targetPage);
In code view you can see that this produces something like the following:
// This script block is auto-generated. Please do not edit!
gwd.actions.events.registerEventHandlers = function(event) {
gwd.actions.events.addHandler('document.body', 'adinitialized', gwd.goToRandomPage, false);
};
gwd.actions.events.deregisterEventHandlers = function(event) {
gwd.actions.events.removeHandler('document.body', 'adinitialized', gwd.goToRandomPage, false);
};
You could choose to skip the GWD UI and use the standard JavaScript event handling APIs to accomplish the same thing, with something along the lines of:
document.body.addEventListener('adinitialized', function() {
var pages = 3; // adjust as appropriate
var targetPage = Math.floor(Math.random() * pages);
event.target.goToPage(targetPage);
});
However, you probably want to avoid this in general, because it will prevent GWD from handling things like element renaming automatically.
If you'd like to jump to one of a specific set of pages, instead of selecting from all pages, you could use an array of page IDs instead.
var pageIds = ['page1_1', 'page1_2'];
var targetPage = pageIds[Math.floor(Math.random() * pageIds.length)];
event.target.goToPage(targetPage);
For future reference, you can find most of the component APIs described in the documentation. Questions about GWD that do not involve code or are otherwise unsuitable for Stack Overflow should be asked on the GWD support forum instead.

showModalDialog deprecated and is out...suffering TMI of what to replace it with

I have been using showModalDialog quite blissfully until the other day when IE 10 started acting up with it. A little Googling revealed that showModalDialog is deprecated.
So my search began for a replacement and that is when I started getting overwhelmed at all the different options.
Since I am working a large existing app I can't just go plugging in whatever library and call it a happy day. Further I need to block execution (or exec a call back function) when the user is done interacting with my popup.
Since we are using jquery 1.4 I thought to use it but the examples I saw popped a div content and that is not my scenario.
Going back to Google I was again overwhelmed with all the modal libraries etc. out there so I was hoping someone could cut through the noise for me.
Here is a typical code snippet:
function LaunchDialog(dialogID, typeName, SubGridName)
{
var left = Number((screen.width / 2) - (700 / 2));
var top = Number((screen.height / 2) - (500 / 2));
var recordId = window.parent......getId();
var serverUri = window......create('/.../rundialog.aspx');
window.showModalDialog(serverUri + '?DialogId=%7b' ..... 'top='+top+', left='+left);
//reload refresh grid only--this is the line for callback
window.parent.RefreshGrids(SubGridName);
}
Switching to window.open I lose my modal dialog effect....which is to say the user could change focus and not complete the dialog questions. Further the code no longer blocks.
So am I just naive to think that it should be as easy as changing window.showmodaldialog to newcrossbrowsermodaldialog(parm1, parm2) etc?

Chrome JavaScript location object

I am trying to start 3 applications from a browser by use of custom protocol names associated with these applications. This might look familiar to other threads started on stackoverflow, I believe that they do not help in resolving this issue so please dont close this thread just yet, it needs a different approach than those suggested in other threads.
example:
ts3server://a.b.c?property1=value1&property2=value2
...
...
to start these applications I would do
location.href = ts3server://a.b.c?property1=value1&property2=value2
location.href = ...
location.href = ...
which would work in FF but not in Chrome
I figured that it might by optimizing the number of writes when there will be effectively only the last change present.
So i did this:
function a ()
{
var apps = ['ts3server://...', 'anotherapp://...', '...'];
b(apps);
}
function b (apps)
{
if (apps.length == 0) return;
location.href = apps[0]; alert(apps[0]);
setTimeout(function (rest) {return function () {b(rest);};} (apps.slice(1)), 1);
}
But it didn't solve my problem (actually only the first location.href assignment is taken into account and even though the other calls happen long enough after the first one (thanks to changing the timeout delay to lets say 10000) the applications do not get started (the alerts are displayed).
If I try accessing each of the URIs separately the apps get started (first I call location.href = uri1 by clicking on one button, then I call location.href = uri2 by clicking again on another button).
Replacing:
location.href = ...
with:
var form = document.createElement('form');
form.action = ...
document.body.appendChild(form);
form.submit();
does not help either, nor does:
var frame = document.createElement('iframe');
frame.src = ...
document.body.appendChild(frame);
Is it possible to do what I am trying to do? How would it be done?
EDIT:
a reworded summary
i want to start MULTIPLE applications after one click on a link or a button like element. I want to achieve that with starting applications associated to custom protocols ... i would hold a list of links (in each link there is one protocol used) and i would try to do "location.src = link" for all items of the list. Which when used with 'for' does optimize to assigning only once (the last value) so i make the function something like recursive function with delay (which eliminates the optimization and really forces 3 distinct calls of location.src = list[head] when the list gets sliced before each call so that all the links are taken into account and they are assigned to the location.src. This all works just fine in Mozilla Firefox, but in google, after the first assignment the rest of the assignments lose effect (they are probably performed but dont trigger the associated application launch))
Are you having trouble looping through the elements? if so try the for..in statement here
Or are you having trouble navigating? if so try window.location.assign(new_location);
[edit]
You can also use window.location = "...";
[edit]
Ok so I did some work, and here is what I got. in the example I open a random ace of spades link. which is a custom protocol. click here and then click on the "click me". The comments show where the JSFiddle debugger found errors.

Executing javascript mixed with HTML from a jQuery ajax response

Or, not precisely "executing," but updating a function that exists before the response with a function returned in the response.
Step 1
I have an HTML5 page that describes a location.
On the server side this page includes a ColdFusion file "MapFunction.cfm." (Which is used for consistent mapping all over the site at large.)
MapFunction.cfm outputs a javascript function "loadMap" mixed with the HTML.
loadMap() contains all the javascript needed to place a Bing map of the location on the page.
Some javascript in a separate js file actually calls loadMap().
This works when the page is first loaded.
Step 2
Search & results stuff is all fine too. Nothing needs to be done with the map here.
Step 3
When a search result is clicked, the result detail is loaded asynchronously via a jQuery $.get() request.
It returns mixed HTML and javascript which I use jQuery to traverse through.
With the jQuery objects I update specific areas of the page to show different details.
One of the areas I need to update is the map. That part isn't working.
What I'm working with is mixed HTML and Javascript that is identical in both Step 1 and Step 3:
<section id="mod-map" class="module mod-map">
<header class="mod-head">
Map <span class="arrow"></span>
</header>
<div id="map" class="mod-body">
<div id="cmMap" style="position:relative;width:369px;height:303px;"></div>
<script type="text/javascript" id="cfLoadMap">
// ...some global variables are defined to use...
function loadMap()
{
// ...Bing/Virtual Earth Map Stuff...
// This part here is unique to each location's detail
var propertypoint = new VELatLong(parseFloat(36.707756),parseFloat(-78.74204));
// ...More Bing/Virtual Earth Map Stuff...
// This part here is unique to each location's detail
var label = "<div class=\"wrapper\"><img onerror=\"replaceImage(this);\" src=\"noimage.jpg\" width=\"100\" class=\"thumb\" alt=\"\" /><div class=\"caption\"><br />City<br /> State, 12345</div></div>";
// ...More Bing/Virtual Earth Map Stuff...
}
</script>
</div>
</section>
Now, in Step 3 loadMap() does get called again, but it just refreshes the map to the same location. The loadMap() function as the browser knows it doesn't get updated with the one retrieved via ajax.
That updated block of mixed HTML & javascript above does get successfully added to the page after each ajax call. It is placed right where it originally is, but with different coordinates and captions where indicated by the comments above. The ajax callback looks like (slightly simplified):
$.get(urlToLoad, {}, function(data, status, request){
var newData = $(innerShiv(data, false)),
newModules = newData.find(".module");
// (innerShiv is used to make HTML5 tags work in IE. It's possible I'm going a little overboard with using it, but I had a lot of issues with IE. :-))
newModules.each(function(i){
var thisId = "#" + $(this).attr("id"),
thisBody = $(this).find(".mod-body").html(),
toReplaceAll = $("body").find(thisId),
toReplaceBody = toReplaceAll.find(".mod-body");
// These variables are used to choose add content in different ways based on thisID. Below is the one the map area is subject to.
toReplaceBody.html(innerShiv(thisBody));
}); // each
// Various things including loadMap() get called/re-initiated/etc. here
}, "html"); // get
This works in Firefox 3.6, but nowhere else I've tested (Opera 11, IE 7, Chrome 8).
I have done this before in a similar situation with dynamically PHP generated javascript written to a separate js file--$.getScript works great there. But this is mixed into the HTML of the ajax response.
I've been looking and have found and tried the following (among other things):
Attempted Solutions
1. var myScript = new Function($('script#cfLoadMap', data).text()); myScript();
2. eval(newData.text());
3. eval(newData.find("#cfLoadMap").text());
4. $("head").append(newData.find("#cfLoadMap"));
None of these so far seem to be doing any good.
I know there are a few other ways this could theoretically be done. But as it stands at the moment, I do not have any ability to change much of anything but what I do with the mixed HTML & javascript response. I need a solution where,
The details will be updated via ajax.
The javascript will be mixed in with the HTML.
The javascript will be a javascript function generated dynamically by ColdFusion.
Very similar questions have been asked & resolved before, so I hope this can be done. However, none of the solutions I've found are working for me. Might be making a mistake or missing something, or maybe it's just different when it's a function?
Any help would be appreciated.
Answer
It suddenly started working with the following code:
$.get(urlToLoad, {}, function(data, status, request){
var safeData = $(innerShiv(data, false)),
newModules = safeData.find(".module"),
newScript = safeData.find("script#cfLoadMap");
// Update Each module
newModules.each(function(i){
var jqoThis = $(this),
thisId = "#" + jqoThis.attr("id"),
newModule = jqoThis,
newModBody = jqoThis.find(".mod-body"),
curModule = $("body").find(thisId),
curModBody = curModule.find(".mod-body");
// Varies by id, this one is used by the map area.
curModBody.html(innerShiv(newModBody.html()));
}); // each
// Make sure plugins are bound to new content
$("body").oneTime(100, function(){
// Various things get initiated here
// Maps -- this one works: Chrome, Firefox, IE7, Opera
$("head").append(newScript);
// Maps -- these did not work
/*
// Firefox only (but Firefox always works)
runScript = new Function(newScript.text());
runScript();
*/
/*
// Firefox only (but Firefox always works)
eval(newScript.text());
*/
}); // oneTime
}, "html"); // get
One thing I did notice for sure was that without innerShiv, in all my browsers, $(data).find("script#cfLoadMap").text() was blank -- which I did not expect.
Most likely it's that functions in JavaScript can be declared in non-global scope, so when you're inserting the <script> tag, jQuery is evaling it, but not replacing the original function (as you noticed).
A fix for this would be to change how you declare the function from this:
function loadMap()
{
...
}
to this:
window.loadMap = function loadMap() {
...
}
That way the top-level loadMap will always be the latest one that came down from the server.
You may want to consider not modifying the client code this way as it can make debugging trickier, but that's totally up to you. Hopefully this answer works for you either way.
It suddenly started working with the following code:
$.get(urlToLoad, {}, function(data, status, request){
var safeData = $(innerShiv(data, false)),
newModules = safeData.find(".module"),
newScript = safeData.find("script#cfLoadMap");
// Update Each module
newModules.each(function(i){
var jqoThis = $(this),
thisId = "#" + jqoThis.attr("id"),
newModule = jqoThis,
newModBody = jqoThis.find(".mod-body"),
curModule = $("body").find(thisId),
curModBody = curModule.find(".mod-body");
// Varies by id, this one is used by the map area.
curModBody.html(innerShiv(newModBody.html()));
}); // each
// Make sure plugins are bound to new content
$("body").oneTime(100, function(){
// Various things get initiated here
// Maps -- this one works: Chrome, Firefox, IE7, Opera
$("head").append(newScript);
// Maps -- these did not work
/*
// Firefox only (but Firefox always works)
runScript = new Function(newScript.text());
runScript();
*/
/*
// Firefox only (but Firefox always works)
eval(newScript.text());
*/
}); // oneTime
}, "html"); // get
One thing I did notice for sure was that without innerShiv, in all my browsers, $(data).find("script#cfLoadMap").text() was blank -- which I did not expect.
However, I don't really see how this is different from what I had tried before and which failed. If someone spots a substantive difference, please let me know, for future reference?
(Note: it doesn't seem to make a difference that the Map bit is placed in the timeout, it works as well above it.)

The definitive best way to preload images using JavaScript/jQuery?

I'm fully aware that this question has been asked and answered everywhere, both on SO and off. However, every time there seems to be a different answer, e.g. this, this and that.
I don't care whether it's using jQuery or not - what's important is that it works, and is cross-browser.]
So, what is the best way to preload images?
Unfortunately, that depends on your purpose.
If you plan to use the images for purposes of style, your best bet is to use sprites.
http://www.alistapart.com/articles/sprites2
However, if you plan to use the images in <img> tags, then you'll want to pre-load them with
function preload(sources)
{
var images = [];
for (i = 0, length = sources.length; i < length; ++i) {
images[i] = new Image();
images[i].src = sources[i];
}
}
(modified source taken from What is the best way to preload multiple images in JavaScript?)
using new Image() does not involve the expense of using DOM methods but a new request for the image specified will be added to the queue. As the image is, at this point, not actually added to the page, there is no re-rendering involved. I would recommend, however, adding this to the end of your page (as all of your scripts should be, when possible) to prevent it from holding up more critical elements.
Edit: Edited to reflect comment quite correctly pointing out that separate Image objects are required to work properly. Thanks, and my bad for not checking it more closely.
Edit2: edited to make the reusability more obvious
Edit 3 (3 years later):
Due to changes in how browsers handle non-visible images (display:none or, as in this answer, never appended to the document) a new approach to pre-loading is preferred.
You can use an Ajax request to force early retrieval of images. Using jQuery, for example:
jQuery.get(source);
Or in the context of our previous example, you could do:
function preload(sources)
{
jQuery.each(sources, function(i,source) { jQuery.get(source); });
}
Note that this doesn't apply to the case of sprites which are fine as-is. This is just for things like photo galleries or sliders/carousels with images where the images aren't loading because they are not visible initially.
Also note that this method does not work for IE (ajax is normally not used to retrieve image data).
Spriting
As others have mentioned, spriting works quite well for a variety of reasons, however, it's not as good as its made out to be.
On the upside, you end up making only one HTTP request for your images. YMMV though.
On the down side you are loading everything in one HTTP request. Since most current browsers are limited to 2 concurrent connections the image request can block other requests. Hence YMMV and something like your menu background might not render for a bit.
Multiple images share the same color palette so there is some saving but this is not always the case and even so it's negligible.
Compression is improved because there is more shared data between images.
Dealing with irregular shapes is tricky though. Combining all new images into the new one is another annoyance.
Low jack approach using <img> tags
If you are looking for the most definitive solution then you should go with the low-jack approach which I still prefer. Create <img> links to the images at the end of your document and set the width and height to 1x1 pixel and additionally put them in a hidden div. If they are at the end of the page, they will be loaded after other content.
As of January 2013 none of the methods described here worked for me, so here's what did instead, tested and working with Chrome 25 and Firefox 18. Uses jQuery and this plugin to work around the load event quirks:
function preload(sources, callback) {
if(sources.length) {
var preloaderDiv = $('<div style="display: none;"></div>').prependTo(document.body);
$.each(sources, function(i,source) {
$("<img/>").attr("src", source).appendTo(preloaderDiv);
if(i == (sources.length-1)) {
$(preloaderDiv).imagesLoaded(function() {
$(this).remove();
if(callback) callback();
});
}
});
} else {
if(callback) callback();
}
}
Usage:
preload(['/img/a.png', '/img/b.png', '/img/c.png'], function() {
console.log("done");
});
Note that you'll get mixed results if the cache is disabled, which it is by default on Chrome when the developer tools are open, so keep that in mind.
In my opinion, using Multipart XMLHttpRequest introduced by some libraries will be a preferred solution in the following years. However IE < v8, still don't support data:uri (even IE8 has limited support, allowing up to 32kb). Here is an implementation of parallel image preloading - http://code.google.com/p/core-framework/wiki/ImagePreloading , it's bundled in framework but still worth taking a look.
This was from a long time ago so I dont know how many people are still interested in preloading an image.
My solution was even more simple.
I just used CSS.
#hidden_preload {
height: 1px;
left: -20000px;
position: absolute;
top: -20000px;
width: 1px;
}
Here goes my simple solution with a fade in on the image after it is loaded.
function preloadImage(_imgUrl, _container){
var image = new Image();
image.src = _imgUrl;
image.onload = function(){
$(_container).fadeTo(500, 1);
};
}
For my use case I had a carousel with full screen images that I wanted to preload. However since the images display in order, and could take a few seconds each to load, it's important that I load them in order, sequentially.
For this I used the async library's waterfall() method (https://github.com/caolan/async#waterfall)
// Preload all images in the carousel in order.
image_preload_array = [];
$('div.carousel-image').each(function(){
var url = $(this).data('image-url');
image_preload_array.push(function(callback) {
var $img = $('<img/>')
$img.load(function() {
callback(null);
})[0].src = url;
});
});
async.waterfall(image_preload_array);
This works by creating an array of functions, each function is passed the parameter callback() which it needs to execute in order to call the next function in the array. The first parameter of callback() is an error message, which will exit the sequence if a non-null value is provided, so we pass null each time.
See this:
http://www.mattfarina.com/2007/02/01/preloading_images_with_jquery
Related question on SO:
jquery hidden preload

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