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18 May

juxtapo plugin framework…feedback wanted

Posted 18 May, 2010 by davetayls in Front End Web Development, javascript, Juxtapo. Tagged: .

I am appealing for your thoughts. You may have taken a look at juxtapo front end tools which includes an in browser templating system for overlays. It includes an API which has been designed to allow developers to extend the core functionality with plugins. I want to extend this so that juxtapo could be aware of available plugins and also plugins could communicate and be aware of each other.

Juxtapo plugins generally initiate themselves as Juxtapo does and extend the core functionality. An example of this is the QUnit plugin which allows the developer to link a number of unit tests to a particular template. It hooks in to the API and once juxtapo has initialised looks up the current template and runs the tests.

What are your thoughts on the following ways which this could be done?

1. Constructor

This method uses a Plugin constructor to create a Plugin object which could then be assigned to a variable.

juxtapo.plugins.newPlugin = new juxtapo.Plugin({
    init: function(){
        juxtapo.initComplete(function(){
            // functionality added on initConfig
        });
    },
    publicVar: 'public'
});

or

juxtapo.plugins.newPlugin = new juxtapo.Plugin(function(){
    juxtapo.initConfig(function(){
        // functionality added on initConfig
    });
    privateVar = 'private';
    return {
        init: function(){
            juxtapo.initComplete(function(){
                // functionality added on initConfig
            });
        },
        publicVar: 'public'
    };
});

2. Add Function

This method uses a function to create a plugin object with defaults and then allow you to customise it. It would then add the resulting plugin to the variable name provided by the first attribute.

juxtapo.plugins.add('newPlugin', function(){
    // this is the function to construct the plugin which has defaults
    // created already
    juxtapo.initConfig(function(){
        // functionality added on initConfig
    });
    // optional init function which would be fired by juxtapo just before
    // iniComplete
    this.init = function(){};
    this.publicVar = 'public';
});

3. Anonymous Function

This method is very open. When juxtapo initialises it will check to see if there is an init function and if it finds one it will call it, otherwise you can attach listener functions to other juxtapo events.

juxtapo.plugins.newPlugin = function(){
    juxtapo.initConfig(function(){
        // functionality added on initConfig
    });
    return {
        init: function(){},
        publicVar: 'public'
    }
}();

3. Create Plugin Function

This works in very much the same way as the add function but uses another function to return an object which can be assigned to the newPlugin variable.

juxtapo.plugins.newPlugin = juxtapo.createPlugin(function(){
    // this is the function to init the plugin which has defaults
    // created already
    juxtapo.initConfig(function(){
        // functionality added on initConfig
    });
    this.init = function(){};
    this.publicVar = 'public';
});

I will be converting the current example juxtapo plugins for the next release v0.8 to use which ever method we feel is the most intuitive and simple to develop with so your help and thoughts will be very much appreciated. If you know of any standards for framework plugins then let me know as well. Thanks in advance.

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