Safely using hook events in JavaScript - javascript

In source code here
http://www.daftlogic.com/sandbox-javascript-slider-control.htm
There is these instructions:
// safely hook document/window events
if (document.onmousemove != f_sliderMouseMove) {
window.f_savedMouseMove = document.onmousemove;
document.onmousemove = f_sliderMouseMove;
}
I don't understand what it does and why it would be safer to do that this way, does someone understand?

It might be that some other code already assigned an event handler to document.onmousemove. The problem with this method, as opposed to addEventListener, is that only one function can be assigned to element.onXXXX. Thus, if you blindly assign a new event handler, an already existing one might be overwritten and other code might break.
In such a case, I would write:
if (document.onmousemove) {
(function() {
var old_handler = document.onmousemove;
document.onmousemove = function() {
old_handler.apply(this, arguments);
f_sliderMouseMove.apply(this, arguments);
};
}());
}
else {
document.onmousemove = f_sliderMouseMove;
}
This way it is ensured that both event handlers are executed. But I guess that depends on the context of the code. Maybe f_sliderMouseMove calls window.f_savedMouseMove anyway.

It is just saving the current hook, presumably so it can call it at the end of its own hook method.
It avoids stamping on some other codes hook that was already set up.
You would expect the hook code to be something like:
f_sliderMouseMove = function(e) {
// Do my thing
// Do their thing
window.f_savedMouseMove();
}
[obligatory jquery plug] use jquery events and you can ignore problems like this...

It appears that this code is storing the function that is currently executed on a mouse move, before setting the new one. That way, it can presumably be restored later, or delegated to, if need be. This should increase compatibility with other code or frameworks.

Related

jQuery persist all event listeners on element for future setting

Using jQuery I need to:
persists list of all event handlers that are added to element,
remove them all for few seconds and
return things to initial state (reassign the same event handlers)
I found that get list of current listeners with (some jQuery inner mechanisms):
var eventsSubmitBtn = $._data(submitButton[0], "events");
Then I can remove all event listeners with
submitButton.off();
But last stem seems not to be working
setTimeout(function () {
$._data(submitButton[0], "events", eventsSubmitBtn);
}, 5000);
eventsSubmitBtn is an empty array.
Is this the way this should be done with initial setting and I'm need something like deep cloning for those objects or this can't be done with $._data?
N.B. I have possibility to add my cistom code after all other system js code, thus I can't place the code assigning to $.fn.on before anything. Code that I write will run the last on startup and other event listeners are attached before my scripts will run.
As you get a reference to the object returned by $._data(), any change to that object will not go unnoticed, i.e. after you invoke .off(), that object will have changed to reflect that there are no handlers attached any more.
You could solve this by taking a shallow copy of the object, (e.g. with Object.assign).
But this is not really a recommended way to proceed. According to a jQuery blog, "jQuery._data(element, "events") ... is an internal data structure that is undocumented and should not be modified.". As you are modifying it when restoring the handlers, this cannot be regarded best practice. But even only reading it should only be used for debugging, not production code.
It would be more prudent to put a condition in your event handling code:
var ignoreEventsFor = $(); // empty list
$("#button").on('click', function () {
if (ignoreEventsFor.is(this)) return;
// ...
});
Then, at the time it is needed, set ignoreEventsFor to the element(s) you want to ignore events for. And when you want to revert back to normal, set it to $() again.
Now adding this to all your event handlers may become a burden. If you stick to using on() for attaching event handlers, then you could instead extend $.fn.on so it will add this logic to the handlers you pass to it.
The following demo has a button which will respond to a click by changing the background color. With a checkbox you can disable this from happening:
/* Place this part immediately after jQuery is loaded, but before any
other library is included
*/
var ignoreEventsFor = $(), // empty list
originalOn = $.fn.on;
$.fn.on = function (...args) {
var f = args[args.length-1];
if (typeof f === 'function') {
args[args.length-1] = function (...args2) {
if (ignoreEventsFor.is(this)) return;
f.call(this, ...args2);
};
}
originalOn.call(this, ...args);
}
/* This next part belongs to the demo, and can be placed anywhere */
$(function () {
$("#colorButton").on('click', function () {
// Just some handler that changes the background
var random = ('00' + (Math.random() * 16*16*16).toString(16)).substr(-3);
$('body').css({ backgroundColor: "#" + random });
});
$("#toggler").on('change', function () {
// Toggle the further handling of events for the color button:
ignoreEventsFor = $(this).is(':checked') ? $("#colorButton") : $();
});
});
<script src="https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/2.1.1/jquery.min.js"></script>
<button id="colorButton">Change color</button><br>
<input type="checkbox" id="toggler">Disable events
Notice: the above code uses ES6 spread/rest syntax: if you need support for IE then that would have to be written using the arguments variable, apply, ...etc.

Is it possible to bind to events on a child window from a parent?

Is it possible to bind functions to events on child windows?
document.getElementById('foo').onclick = function() {
var newWindow= window.open('other.html', "_blank");
newWindow.document.addEventListener("onreadystatechange", function(){
console.log('foo'); // This is never run. Can I construct the new window so that it is run "onreadystatechange"?
});
return false;
};
Note that I would like to bind an event to onreadystatechange. I wish to avoid a race condition, can I create a window, bind the events and then load the URL to avoid the race condition?
.addEventListener("onreadystatechange", ...)
Event properties start with "on". The event names on the other hand do not. I.e. it should be
.addEventListener("readystatechange", ...)
I have not tried avoiding the race condition because I know of no way to do so.
Ok, I'm not entirely sure how events and auxiliary browsing context initialization work with window.open(), the spec is quite complex there.
I'd just try setting DOM event breakpoints (chrome debugger has those) and see which events are fired in which order and then check if that works in other browsers.
That said, I think the simplest option here might to read the document.readyState property. If it's "complete" then the site is already fully loaded and no further state change event will be fired and you can execute your script directly instead of waiting for the event.
If you do this should be good to go.
var newwindow = window.open('other.html', "_blank");
var $ = newwindow.$; // add if needed
$(newwindow).bind('someEvent', function() { FunctionThatDoesSomethingInTheNewWindow });
return false;

calling a function using a mouse event without attaching it to an HTML element?

I am taking a web development class. Today the teacher gave us a piece of code that raised some questions that I haven't been able to satisfactorily solve through my own searching. The code in question was essentially this:
<script>
function selectmouse(e){
...
...
}
document.onmousedown = selectmouse;
</script>
My first question, is this a legitimate way of calling functions? Is this something that is done? I am of course familiar with the typical way of calling functions from HTML elements, for example
<body onmousedown="selectmouse(event)">
The code was supposed to be calling the function and passing it the event object for the onmousedown. After playing with the code for a while I found a few unusual things.
First, if I put parenthesis after the function call, like I am used to doing (i.e. selectmouse();), then the function resolved immediately upon loading the page, with a value of 'undefined' for the variable. This makes intuitive sense to me, because I assume the browser is treating it like a variable assignment and therefore calling the function as it parses the code, as it normally would to assign a variable.
However the part that is weird to me happened when I deleted the '()' and left it as it is coded above. In this instance it seemed to function like she wanted it to. It would call the function when the mouse was pressed in any part of the body, and it sent the event object as the variable for the function. But I can't figure out why. I can't find reference to anything similar to it online, and I've never seen anything like it before. Is this a legitimate way to do something like this? Or is this bad code that happens to be working for some reason and would probably cause problems in the future? Why is it working?
document.onmousedown = selectmouse; //note: never do this except in old browsers
However the part that is weird to me happened when I deleted the '()' and left it as it is coded above. In this instance it seemed to function like she wanted it to.
That's not weird. You are passing the reference of the function to the browser, not executing it.
For example, you have this function:
function callback(){
alert("clicked!");
}
document.body.onclick = callback;
You pass the reference to onclick and the browser will know what function to call when the event is triggered. But if you do it like this:
document.body.onclick = callback();
This will be evaluated into:
document.body.onclick = alert("clicked!");
//Note that this is simplified explanation to visualize what is happening.
//The returned value of alert() is not assigned to onclick.
//To be exact the returned value of callback() is the one that is being assigned.
//Similar to:
// ...onclick = (function(){ alert("clicked!"); })();
Then you will see an alert, and the browser will continue executing the rest of the code:
document.body.onclick = undefined;
<body onmousedown="selectmouse(event)"> <!-- Don't do this too -->
The parentheses are necessary because this code is not executed instantly. It is only executed when the event is triggered.
Anyway, you shouldn't attach events both using .onmousedown or onmousdown="...". There is a better way of doing it:
element.addEventListener("mousedown", callback, false);
Reason: If you use the onmousedown property, you can only attach one mousedown event. In most cases you would want to attach more than one.
Also attaching events inline might cause security problems (cross-site scripting), and that is exactly why Google decided to prohibit all developers from using them in developing Chrome apps/extensions.
This is legitimate code and is working as it should.
The way you are comfortable with is just a method we tried while the web was evolving, but at present we should better use the second way you showed, although its changed bit more to make you understand it in a better way using event bindings.
When you do
function selectmouse(e){
...
...
}
javascript will create a variable named selectmouse and save the function in that variable. So selectmouse is a variable of type function with the function body as its value.
document on the other hand can be related to class or specifically an object which is an instance. Each document and each HTML element or DOM node can have in it variables to store the functions to be called on user events like onmousedown.
so when doing
document.onmousedown = selectmouse;
we are inturn saying
when mousedown happens in document, the function named selectmouse
should be called
If you do
document.onmousedown = selectmouse();
it means
run the function selectmouse immediately and get the result, assign
the result to onmousedown event of the DOM Node document.
And if you ask why this is taken apart from the form
<body onmousedown="selectmouse(event)">
To answer in a simple way, HTML is Hyper Text Markup Language, its sole purpose is to represent formatted data, the quick evolution of web inturn made it deranged with behaviours like this and presentation code like inline css. So to make behaviour and presentation out of HTML and thus a better design we do this.
Please take time to take a look at how you can bind a function to an event which is the current tradeoff in doing this same thing.
For a detailed explanation please check the events sectio of ppk blog here
I think that is correct, because the function is being called within the script as if it were an object, to me is not the best way to do it, I would have like this (with jquery):
$(document).mousedown(function (event) {
// here the content of the function
});
<body onmousedown="selectmouse(event)">
In this example the browser evaluates the result of the expression selectmouse(event) and assigns it to the onmousedown property of the body, event is undefined and the selectmouse doesn't return anything so it's result is undefined.
It is equivalent of the following if it was inside a script tag
<script>
function selectmouse(e) {
}
document.body.onmousedown = selectmouse(event);
</script>
<body onmousedown="selectmouse">
When you remove the () you are assigning a function to the onmousedown property. Now the browser fires your callback method whenever the mousedown event is raised and it bubbles up to the body, passing the current event as the parameter you're declaring as "e". If another element also had an onmousedown event handler declared but it cancelled the event ( by calling event.cancelBubble = true ) the body's onmousedown handler will not be invoked.
<script>
function selectmouse(e) {
}
document.body.onmousedown = selectmouse;
</script>

Removing DOM Event Observer

I'm working in a javascript based system with some legacy code (ominous music), and this legacy code adds event listeners like this
foo.addEventListener("click",function(){
//do some stuff
});
Is there a way for me to programmatically remove event listeners that have been added like this? I know about removeEventListener, but's it's not clear from the documentation how (if at all) to remove a listener which a programmer added via an anonymous function.
As far as I can tell, you can't use an anonymous function if you want to call removeEventListener because you need a reference to the same function that you used with addEventListener and the only way to do that is to have a name for the function (e.g. not anonymous).
Similar question and conclusion here: removeEventListener on anonymous functions in JavaScript
Without changing the structure of your code, you can give it a name and then use that name later.
foo.addEventListener("click", function fooClickHandler(){
//do some stuff
});
// then later
foo.removeEventListener("click", fooClickHandler);
You can remove them the same way that you add them by passing in the handler that you created it with. The handler ceases to be an anonymous function at this point though:
var handler = function() {
// do some stuff
};
foo.addEventListener("click", handler);
foo.removeEventListener("click", handler);
You can do some funky stuff like this to remove handlers with anonymous functions although I don't recommend it, but it is possible and you can't access callee in strict mode:
document.addEventListener('click', function(e) {
console.log('click');
if(e.unbind) {
document.removeEventListener('click', arguments.callee);
}
});
var event;
// First actual real event
event = new Event('click');
document.dispatchEvent(event);
// Unbinding event
event = new Event('click');
event.unbind = true;
document.dispatchEvent(event);
// Should not fire
event = new Event('click');
document.dispatchEvent(event);
If you want to get rid of all eventlisteners before adding your own you can use clonenode and remove original. The copy will not have the eventlisteners copied with it.
var fee = foo.cloneNode();
foo.parentNode.replaceChild(fee, foo);
Should look the same but without eventlistener.
Got a fiddle here that proves my point: http://jsfiddle.net/U7w7M/1/
Notice how the formatting stays, the position is the same, but click action is removed after first click

jQuery temporary unbinding events

Maybe I'm totally missing something about even handling in jQuery, but here's my problem.
Let's assume there are some event binding, like
$(element).bind("mousemove", somefunc);
Now, I'd like to introduce a new mousemove binding that doesn't override the previous one, but temporarily exclude (unbind) it. In other words, when I bind my function, I must be sure that no other functions will ever execute for that event, until I restore them.
I'm looking for something like:
$(element).bind("mousemove", somefunc);
// Somefunc is used regularly
var savedBinding = $(element).getCurrentBinding("mousemove");
$(element).unbind("mousemove").bind("mousemove", myfunc);
// Use myfunc instead
$(element).unbind("mousemove", myfunc).bind("mousemove", savedBindings);
Of course, the somefunc is not under my control, or this would be useless :)
Is my understanding that is possible to bind multiple functions to the same event, and that the execution of those functions can't be pre-determined.
I'm aware of stopping event propagation and immediate event propagation, but I'm thinking that they are useless in my case, as the execution order can't be determined (but maybe I'm getting these wrong).
How can I do that?
EDIT: I need to highlight this: I need that the previously installed handler (somefunc) isn't executed. I am NOT defining that handler, it may be or may be not present, but its installed by a third-party user.
EDIT2: Ok, this is not feasible right now, I think I'm needing the eventListenerList, which is not implemented in most browsers yet. http://www.w3.org/TR/2002/WD-DOM-Level-3-Events-20020208/changes.html
Another way could be to use custom events, something along these lines:
var flag = 0;
$(element).bind("mousemove", function() {
if(flag) {
$(this).trigger("supermousemove");
} else {
$(this).trigger("magicmousemove");
}
}).bind("supermousemove", function() {
// do something super
}).bind("magicmousemove", function() {
// do something magical
});
$("#foo").click(function() {
flag = flag == 1 ? 0 : 1; // simple switch
});
Highly annoying demo here: http://jsfiddle.net/SkFvW/
Good if the event is bound to multiple elements:
$('.foo').click(function() {
if ( ! $(this).hasClass('flag')) {
do something
}
});
(add class 'flag' to sort of unbind, add it to 'bind')

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