How to interrupt previous event triggers in jQuery - javascript

So I've got a scroll event. It does a load of stuff to work out whether something should be moved on the page. When you scroll down, it fires off. If you wheel down, drag, it fires of bazillions and bazillions of times. As you'd expect, perhaps. Here's some simple dummy code to represent the sequence of events.
function scroller() {
// 1. A really expensive calculation that depends on the scroll position
// 2. Another expensive calculation to work out where should be now
// 3. Stop current animations
// 4. Animate an object to new position based on 1 and 2
}
$(window).on('resize' scroller);
Don't get me wrong, it's usually accurate so there isn't so much a concurrency issue. My animations inside the event call .stop() (as part #3) so the latest version is always* the right one but it's eating up a lot of CPU. I'd like to be a responsible developer here, not expecting every user to have a quad core i7.
So to my question... Can I kill off previous calls to my method from a particular event handler? Is there any way I can interfere with this stack of queued/parallel-running "processes" so that when a new one is added to the stack, the old ones are terminated instantly? I'm sure there's a concurrency-minded way of wording this but I can't think of it.
*At least I think that's the case - if the calculations took longer in an earlier run, their animation could be the last one to be called and could cock up the entire run! Hmm. I hadn't thought about that before thinking about it here. Another reason to stop the previous iterations immediately!

You can ensure the event is fired a maximum of once per x milliseconds. E.g.:
(function ($) {
$.fn.delayEvent = function (event, callback, ms) {
var whichjQuery = parseFloat($().jquery, 10)
, bindMethod = whichjQuery > 1.7 ? "on" : "bind"
, timer = 0;
$(this)[bindMethod](event, function (event) {
clearTimeout (timer);
timer = setTimeout($.proxy(callback, this, event), ms);
});
return $(this);
};
})(jQuery);
$(window).delayEvent("resize", scroller, 1000);
Minimalistic demo: http://jsfiddle.net/karim79/z2Qhz/6/

Related

Order of timestamps in requestAnimationFrame and mouse events

I ran into a problem where timestamps received in requestAnimationFrame callbacks and mouse events do not seem to be in order, I mean I expect them to be increasing (as I hope that time goes only in one direction :)), but that doesn't seem to be the case. It can be illustrated by this example code:
<html><body>
<script type="text/javascript">
let lastTimesamp = -1;
function log(name, timestamp) {
console.log(name, timestamp);
console.assert(lastTimesamp < timestamp, "Invalid time", lastTimesamp, timestamp);
lastTimesamp = timestamp;
}
function update(timestamp) {
log("update", timestamp);
requestAnimationFrame(update);
}
requestAnimationFrame(update);
function mouseDown(event) {
log("mouseDown", event.timeStamp);
}
document.body.addEventListener("mousedown", mouseDown, false);
</script>
</body></html>
If you start clicking with your mouse you can see this sort of output eventually:
which implies that mouse-down event happened before the last update call.
I get the opposite situation on my production app: call to update is made with a timestamp which is before the last call to mouse-down callback.
Can someone explain it to me? From the documentation it looks like they are not necessary measured in the same way, but wouldn't it make sense to time them in the same time?
What happens here is that the AnimationFrameCallbacks queue has an higher priority than UI events.
So it may occur that your UI event fires in the same frame than the painting frame, it will thus get its timeStamp set at this moment, or even by the OS when it received it in the first place. But, the UA will chose to prioritize the AnimationFrameCallbacks instead of the UI event callbacks, so the UI event callback will get delayed until the next event-loop iteration.
Since the rAF callback gets its own timestamp from inside the event-loop iteration that will call it, this timestamp will be higher than the one of UI event, even though its callback fires before.
Also note that Chrome has it's requestAnimationFrame method completely broken, so it may not help for debugging.

Javascript : setTimeout and interface freezing

Context
I've got about 10 complex graphs which take 5sec each to refresh. If I do a loop on these 10 graphs, it takes about 50 seconds to refresh. During these 50 seconds, the user can move a scrollbar. If the scrollbar is moved, the refresh must stop and when the scrollbar stops to move, the refresh occurs again.
I'm using the setTimeout function inside the loop to let the interface refresh.
the algorithm is :
render the first graph
setTimeout(render the second graph, 200)
when the second graph is rendered, render the third one in 200ms, and so on
The setTimeout allows us to catch the scrollbar event and to clearTimeout the next refresh to avoid to wait 50sec before moving the scrollbar...
The problem is that it does not run anytime.
Take the simple following code (you can try it in this fiddle : http://jsfiddle.net/BwNca/5/) :
HTML :
<div id="test" style="width: 300px;height:300px; background-color: red;">
</div>
<input type="text" id="value" />
<input type="text" id="value2" />
Javascript :
var i = 0;
var j = 0;
var timeout;
var clicked = false;
// simulate the scrollbar update : each time mouse move is equivalent to a scrollbar move
document.getElementById("test").onmousemove = function() {
// ignore first move (because onclick send a mousemove event)
if (clicked) {
clicked = false;
return;
}
document.getElementById("value").value = i++;
clearTimeout(timeout);
}
// a click simulates the drawing of the graphs
document.getElementById("test").onclick = function() {
// ignore multiple click
if (clicked) return;
complexAlgorithm(1000);
clicked = true;
}
// simulate a complexe algorithm which takes some time to execute (the graph drawing)
function complexAlgorithm(milliseconds) {
var start = new Date().getTime();
for (var i = 0; i < 1e7; i++) {
if ((new Date().getTime() - start) > milliseconds){
break;
}
}
document.getElementById("value2").value = j++;
// launch the next graph drawing
timeout = setTimeout(function() {complexAlgorithm(1000);}, 1);
}
The code does :
when you move your mouse into the red div, it updates a counter
when you click on the red div, it simulates a big processing of 1sec (so it freezes the interface due to javascript mono thread)
after the freezing, wait 1ms, and resimulate the processing and so on until the mouse move again
when the mouse move again, it breaks the timeout to avoid infinite loop.
The problem
When you click one time and move the mouse during the freeze, I was thinking that the next code that will be executed when a setTimeout will occurs is the code of the mousemove event (and so it will cancel the timeout and the freeze) BUT sometimes the counter of click gains 2 or more points instead of gaining only 1 point due to the mouvemove event...
Conclusion of this test : the setTimeout function does not always release resource to execute a code during a mousemove event but sometimes kept the thread and execute the code inside the settimeout callback before executing another code.
The impact of this is that in our real example, the user can wait 10 sec (2 graphs are rendered) instead of waiting 5 seconds before using the scrollbar. This is very annoying and we need to avoid this and to be sure that only one graph is rendered (and other canceled) when the scrollbar is moved during a render phase.
How to be sure to break the timeout when the mouse move ?
PS: in the simple example below, if you update the timeout with 200ms, all runs perfectly but it is not an acceptable solution (the real problem is more complex and the problem occurs with a 200ms timer and a complex interface). Please do not provide a solution as "optimize the render of the graphs", this is not the problem here.
EDIT : cernunnos has a better explanation of the problem :
Also, by "blocking" the process on your loop you are ensuring no event can be handled until that loop has finished, so any event will only be handled (and the timeout cleared) inbetween the execution of each loop (hence why you sometimes have to wait for 2 or more full executions before interrupting).
The problem is exactly contains in bold words : I want to be sure to interrupt the execution when I want and not to wait 2 or more full executions before interrupting
Second EDIT :
In summary : takes this jsfiddle : http://jsfiddle.net/BwNca/5/ (the code above).
Update this jsfiddle and provide a solution to :
Mouse move on the red div. Then click and continue moving : the right counter must raise only once. But sometimes it raises 2 or 3 times before the first counter can run again... this is the problem, it must raise only once !
The BIG problem here is setTimeout is unpredictable once it started, and especially when it is doing some heavy lifiting.
You can see the demo here:
http://jsfiddle.net/wao20/C9WBg/
var secTmr = setTimeout(function(){
$('#display').append('Timeout Cleared > ');
clearTimeout(secTmr);
// this will always shown
$('#display').append('I\'m still here! ');
}, 100);
There are two things you can do to minimize the impact on the browser performance.
Store all the intances of the setTimeoutID, and loop through it when you want to stop
var timers = []
// When start the worker thread
timers.push( setTimeout(function () { sleep(1000);}, 1) );
// When you try to clear
while (timers.length > 0) {
clearTimeout(timers.pop());
}
Set a flag when you try to stop process and check that flag inside your worker thread just in case clearTimeout failed to stop the timer
// Your flag
var STOPForTheLoveOfGod = false;
// When you try to stop
STOPForTheLoveOfGod = true;
while (timers.length > 0) {
clearTimeout(timers.pop());
}
// Inside the for loop in the sleep function
function sleep(milliseconds) {
var start = new Date().getTime();
for (var i = 0; i < 1e7; i++) {
if (STOPForTheLoveOfGod) {
break;
}
// ...
}
}
You can try out this new script.
http://jsfiddle.net/wao20/7PPpS/4/
I may have understood the problem but assuming you are trying to block the interface after a click for a minimum of 1 second and unblocking it by moving the mouse (after that 1 second minimum):
This is not a good implementation of sleep, as you are keeping the process running the whole time (doing nothing != sleeping), this results in a waste of resources.
Why not create an overlay (a semi/fully transparent div), put it on top of the rest of the interface (position fixed, full width and full height) and use it to prevent any interaction with the underlying interface. Then destroy it when the conditions are right (a second has passed and the user moved the mouse).
This behaves more like a sleep (has some initial processing time but then releases the processor for a given amount of time) and should help you achieve the behavior you need (assuming i understood it right).
It has the added bonus of allowing you to give the user some visual cue that some processing is being done.
Edit:
Also, by "blocking" the process on your loop you are ensuring no event can be handled until that loop has finished, so any event will only be handled (and the timeout cleared) inbetween the execution of each loop (hence why you sometimes have to wait for 2 or more full executions before interrupting).
Surprising enough you have not figured out that, when you setTimeout(); you can input a check after that. A variable is true then trash the wait, or trash it. Now there is a method that you can check to scroll with a scroll bar. After you have checked it true inside a variabled using the means, then you will find this will repeat inifite times as they scroll the bar, making many executing times of 5 seconds. To fix this add a 1 second wait to make sure it doesn't over repeat. Your welcome :)
Any long-running function is going to tie up your browser window. Consider moving your complexAlgorithm() outside of your main javascript code using WebWorkers.
The answer is in your question
...the refresh must stop and when the scrollbar stops to move, the
refresh occurs again.
You should write complexAlgorithm in such way that you can almost instantly brake it in a middle (just when you know you will have to re run)
so main code should look something like
stopAllRefresh; //should instantly(or after completing small chunk) stop refresh
setTimeout(startRefresh, 100);
and render graph in small chunks (each runs < 1sec) in setTimeout
like
var curentGraph = 0;
var curentChunk = 0;
function renderGraphChunk(){
if (needToBreak) //check if break rendering
{exit};
// Render chunk here
render(curentGraph, curentChunk);
curentChunk +=1;
setTimeout(renderGraphChunk, 1);
}
this is just a idea sketch, real implementation can be completely different
What you want to do can not be done without web worker, that is only implemented in some latest browser specially Chrome.
Otherwise, you have to break your algorithm in queue. Just like jQuery UI puts every next animation calculation in queue. http://api.jquery.com/jQuery.queue/
It is a simple queue and next instruction set is queued with help of setTimeout.
for (i=0; i <1000; i++)
{
process (i) ;
}
Can be translated to
function queue(s,n, f)
{
this.i=s;
this.n=n;
this.f=f;
this.step = function(){
if ( this.i <this.n)
{
this.f(this.i);
this.i = this.i +1;
var t = this;
setTimeout( function ( ) { t.step(); } , 5);
}
}
this.step();
}
queue ( O, 1000, function(i){
process(i);
}) ;
This is just an example of how Synchronous for loop can be written to execute same logic asynchronously using smaller independent iteration.
Try and check out web workers. I think it will be useful in this situation.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_worker
http://www.html5rocks.com/en/tutorials/workers/basics/

clearInterval - something's amiss

It seems that everyone has a few problems with clearInterval. I have built a slider that allows people to hover a click on arrows. The banner also rotates ever few seconds. I want to be able to have the auto-rotate turn off after someone clicks on one of the arrows.
Here's my code:
$(function(){
var intvl = 0;
intvl = setInterval(heroTransitionNext, 2000);
$('.rightArrow').click(function(){
window.clearInterval(intvl);
});
});
EDIT:
Here is the function it is calling:
function heroTransitionNext() {
$('.HP-hero li').filter(':visible').fadeOut('normal', function () {
if ($(this).next().length != 0) {
activeZone = parseInt(activeZone) + 1;
$(this).next().fadeIn('normal', heroNavHighlight(activeZone));
} else {
activeZone = 1;
$('.HP-hero li:first-child').fadeIn('normal', heroNavHighlight(activeZone));
}
$(this).hide();
});
};
To stop the animation you can use jquery's .stop() but not sure whether it'll solve the problem or not that you are facing (didn't visualize) but you can give it a try
$('.HP-hero li').stop(1,1); // or try $('.HP-hero li').stop()
window.clearInterval(intvl);
As say2joe said that clearInterval will just stop the function from invoking next time but it won't clear the current queue (he is right) so in that case stop could be used.
About Stop.
Depending on how much work your heroTransitionNext function is doing, it may still be executing even though the interval is cleared -- in other words, clearing the interval will stop the function from being invoked -- but, any instance of the function(s) executing in memory will continue to execute until finished.
To be more clear, here's a use case (you can check this out yourself by using a profiler in Firebug or Developer Tools):
heroTransitionNext execution time is 2.1 seconds.
clearInterval is invoked 6.1 seconds after setInterval is invoked.
At 6.1 seconds, heroTransitionNext has been invoked four times. The first three executions have completed, however, the fourth will not complete until it finishes executing (at 8.1 seconds since setInterval was called). Note: In this use case, each successive invokation will execute while the last invokation's execution is still continuing (for 100 more ms) -- in other words, you'll have execution overlap from 2 to 2.1, 4 to 4.1, and 6 to 6.1 second intervals.
If the function takes longer to execute than the interval set, use a recursive function with setTimeout(). The following link will give you a good example.
Also, a good reference for explanation is https://developer.mozilla.org/en/DOM/window.setInterval.

In Javascript, queuing the execution of function if the function is already executing, but cancel any previously queued

I've faced the following scenario quite often so I'm wondering if there is a built-in jQuery way of solving the issue.
Imagine the following code:
$(document).click(function() {
paintCanvas();
});
The problem with this code is that if the user clicks on the screen 50 times in rapid succession you are going to overload the browser with 50 calls to paintCanvas.
If paintCanvas is currently executing and a new request is created, we want to queue the new request so that it waits until paintCanvas is finished executing. However, at the same time, we can drop any previously queued calls to paintCanvas as we only care about the final state of the mouse, not all the intermediate states.
Here is some code that solves the problem:
var _isExecuting, _isQueued;
function paintCanvas() {
if (_isExecuting) {
if (!_isQueued) {
_isQueued = true;
setTimeout(function() {
_isQueued = false;
paintCanvas();
}, 150);
}
return;
}
_isExecuting = true;
// ... code goes here
_isExecuting = false;
};
This AJAX queue plugin essentially implements this functionality, but does so only in terms of AJAX. Surely this is a very common problem that can be solved in more generic way?
You shouldn't have to solve this problem with mousemove because the system already does that for you. While paintCanvas is executing, it is not generating hundreds of mousemove events even if the mouse is moving vigorously. Rather, the next event will be the current location of the mouse, not a queue of all the intervening mouse events.
Look at this jsFiddle: http://jsfiddle.net/jfriend00/4ZuMn/.
Wiggle your mouse around in the body (lower, right pane) as fast as you want. Then move the mouse out of the pane and notice that the count stops immediately - there are no more mouse events. It doesn't stack up mouse events ever. Whenever the system is ready for the next mouse event, it gets the latest position of the mouse. Individual mouse moves are NOT queued up - they do not accumulate. You can also see in the listing of mouse events that lots of intervening mouse events are not present (e.g. lots of coordinates are missing) even though the mouse went through more positions. This is because the system wasn't ready to make a mouse event when the mouse was in that position so that position was skipped.
Further, because javascript is single threaded, you will never get a new mouse event while you are currently processing one. The system won't generate a new one until you're done processing the one you're already one. So, you will never, ever see _isExecuting as true in javascript in your code. You simply don't need that check. And, since you don't need that check and it will never be true, none of your queuing code will ever execute. You can see here in this jsFiddle, that you can never catch a mousemove event that was re-entered: http://jsfiddle.net/jfriend00/ngnUT/. The inAction flag is never caught as true, no matter how fast or much you wiggle your mouse around.
Sounds like you want throttle/debounce features.
There are no built in methods that I know of from jQuery, you can use any of these though:
http://benalman.com/projects/jquery-throttle-debounce-plugin/
http://jsperf.com/jquery-throttle-methods
Though #rkw provided a link, I always prefer to show code here on SO. Here's some simple code that kind does what you want. A function that returns a buffered version of another function. This will keep delaying until it stops receiving the event for the given delay. You can tweak this if you don't want to to wait for the delay after the last event. All you'd need to do is keep track of when you first set the timeout and offset the subsequent calls to setTimeout.
Here's a working example http://jsfiddle.net/mendesjuan/qfFjZ/
function createBuffered(handler, delay) {
var timeoutId = null;
return function() {
var me = this;
if (timeoutId) {
window.clearTimeout(timeoutId);
}
timeoutId = setTimeout(function() {
handle.apply(me, arguments);
timeoutId = null;
}, delay);
}
}

An efficient way to cancel a mouseover event... read on to see why

I'm in the process of authoring a completely client side web language reference site. A problem that I encountered today; I have a side panel that is a unordered list of terms and they have onmouseover event listeners. I decided it would be a good idea to add a delay prior to execution and cancel the event at run-time if the mouse was no longer over that element. This is what I've come up with but I feel there must be a better way.
var currentXCoordinate=0
var currentYCoordinate=0
var elementFromCurrentMousePosition=0
function trackCurrentMousePosition(event) {
if (document.elementFromPoint(event.clientX, event.clientY).nodeName=="SPAN") {
elementFromCurrentMousePosition=document.elementFromPoint(event.clientX, event.clientY).parentNode
}
else {
elementFromCurrentMousePosition=document.elementFromPoint(event.clientX, event.clientY)
}
return (currentXCoordinate=event.clientX, currentYCoordinate=event.clientY, elementFromCurrentMousePosition)
}
function initPreview(event, obj) {
arg1=event
arg2=obj
setTimeout("setPreviewDataFields(arg1, arg2)", 100)
}
function setPreviewDataFields(event, obj) {
if ('bubbles' in event) {
event.stopPropagation()
}
else {
event.cancelBubble=true
}
if (elementFromCurrentMousePosition!=obj) {
return 0;
}
The code goes on to do all the wonderful stuff I want it to do if execution wasn't cancelled by the previous if statement. The problem is this method is seeming to be really processor intensive.
To sum it up: on page load all my event listeners are registered, cursor position is being tracked by a onmousemove event. Applicable list items have a onmouseover event that calls the initPreview function which just waits a given period of time before calling the actual setPreviewDataFields function. If at run-time the cursor is no longer over the list element the function stops by return 0.
Sadly that's the best I could come up with. If anyone can offer up a better solution I would be very grateful.
Why not just use mouseout to tell when the mouse leaves an element? Running all of that code every time the mouse moves isn't ideal.
Also, you really shouldn't pass a string to setTimeout like that. Instead, pass a function. As a bonus, you can get rid of those evil global variables arg1 and arg2. With those being globals, I think you will run into issues if init gets called again before the timeout expires.

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