[Seaside] Repainting during AJAX callbacks

[Bart Gauquie]

Is the ax framework available? I'm only finding axannouncements on
squeaksource?

Regards,

Bart

On Sat, Sep 4, 2010 at 12:23 AM, Levente Uzonyi <leves at elte.hu> wrote:

> On Fri, 3 Sep 2010, C. David Shaffer wrote:
>
>  Before I get too far let me say that I don't know, yet, whether this is
>> an unnecessary hack or a worthwhile framework.  I'm using it now and
>> like it but I'd be happy to replace it with something better is people
>> can tell me what that better thing is :-).
>>
>> Here's the problem: During an AJAX callback (request, update or script)
>> sometimes a component unrelated to the one making the callback needs to
>> be repainted.  Normally this happens as the result of an announcement.
>> While announcements serve to decouple the components they also prevent
>> the source of the announcement from knowing to cause this other
>> component to paint.
>>
>> Basically this motivates using Comet but I don't like Comet and find
>> that I don't need Comet's level of "server push" for any of my
>> applications.  What I need is simply the way tack a little extra
>> javascript on the end of AJAX calls...
>>
>> My solution: Repaintable in the Cincom Public Store Repository.  (This
>> package uses JQuery.)  It is a very simple framework so easily abandoned
>> if it is the wrong thing to do :-)  Here's how it works:  Components
>> subclass RPRepaintable (or you merge RPRepaintable's methods into your
>> component hierarchy if that isn't possible).  You must also use
>> RPSession or a subclass as your session class for your application.
>> When a component wants to append javascript onto the end of the current
>> response to an AJAX request it:
>>
>>   self repaint: 'some-jquery-selector' using: [:h | "h is a canvas"]
>>
>> The block with be invoked with a canvas.  Paint on it was you normally
>> would.  Its contents will be loaded by jQuery into the element(s)
>> indentified by 'some-jquery-selector' (normally an element id).
>>
>> To simplify things, if the component wants to be able to completely
>> repaint itself it can implement the following trio of methods:
>>
>> renderContentOn: html
>>   html div
>>       id: self contentId;
>>       with: [self paintOn: html]
>>
>> contentId
>>   ^'some-unique-id'
>>
>> paintOn: html
>>
>>   html text: 'Put your normal renderContentOn: stuff here'
>>
>>
>> Then, such a component just has to send itself #repaint to repaint its
>> contents.  So, suppose you receive an announcement and you want to
>> repaint yourself.  Just do "self repaint".  Its that simple.  It works
>> whether the original AJAX request was "script" or "html" type.  Sending
>> #repaint (#repaint:using) during a full-page repaint (normal HTTP
>> request) does nothing...your component will be painted during the render
>> phase anyway so normally this is not a problem.
>>
>> An example is provided in the Public Store Repository
>> (Repaintable-example).  Some notes:
>>
>> 1) All AJAX requests must either be dataType 'script' or 'html'.  This
>> means that cases when you don't render anything like:
>>
>> html div
>>   onClick: ((html jQuery: #foo) ajax callback: [self foo])
>>
>> will have to modified to
>>
>> html div
>>   onClick: ((html jQuery: #foo) ajax dataType: 'script'; callback:
>> [self foo])
>>
>> I think that this this is the result of a bug in Repaintable but I can't
>> tell.  In practice 99% of my AJAX requests are either html: or script:
>> requests anyway.  In those cases you don't need to send dataType:.
>>
>> 2) If you are using AJAX for purposes other than sending back HTML or
>> javascript you might end up with cruft being appended to your responses
>> :-) as components try to repaint themselves.  This isn't a problem for
>> me but it might be for those of you using JSON to transfer data etc.
>> This could be fixed if it becomes a problem for anyone.
>>
>> So, garbage or pure genius (I know the answer already as it took me
>> three attempts to spell genius)?
>>
>
> :) This is how our AX framework worked (AXAnnouncements were extracted from
> that). The demo is still available here:
> http://axdemo.seasidehosting.st/seaside/ax
>
>
> Levente
>
>
>
>> David
>>
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