( Takes deep breath, puts helmet on, tells mom he loves her in case he doesn't
make it back )
Seeing that this list has lately been a very boring and quiet lake of peaceful
coding, allow me to throw a new disturbance focus.
For the last days/weeks we've been undergoing a very heavy rewrite of the API.
Since it was not a matter of lines but a very big rewriting, we decided to keep
it quiet and parallel. If we had started chaging stuff in CVS without testing
and warning, we might have been flooded with "what's going on" messages and
honestly that was the last thing I wanted. Not that other people's opinions are
not considered be we did want to have some consistent stuff before leting it
into the crude Arena of this forum.
First of all: it is backwards compatible. As I will explain later, the only
thing which has changed is the event stuff, which is no longer in the api
package but has its own, evnt. You will have to change one line in your
includes.
Second: this is work in progress. Expect things that have already been fixed to
reappear. However, you will notice that everything is now much much cleaner,
and if property .doc for your layer is not properly set, you won't have to
search two or three methods.
Third: there are a reasonable amount of comments. This makes files bigger, but
we want it clear this time.
Fourth: an initial look at dynapi.js will make you thing that there's a lot
more code than it was. In fact the only file that increased in size was
dynapi.js, allowing the specific files to me much smaller and cleaner.
Fift: i have included a generic method that allows to add lines of code to
already defined methods. So if you look at dynlayer.js and you can't see any
eventcapturing code, don't be puzzled. If you open mouse.js ( where the
mouseevents are now ) you will see a call to
addCode("createLayer","this.captureMouseEvents()"). This way of working makes
it possible for optional files ( mousevents ) to add stuff to already defined
methods, without having to have ugly if(mouseEvent) this.captureMouseEvents()
lines and such. Besides, this way we have eradicated crossreferences between
files.
Sixth: I've tried to keep in mind all the suggestions that I could remember
going throught the list, as well as provide an structure that allows a rational
growth. To me this was more important than particular browser issues ( helmet
on :) ) because once the structure is solid improvements are easier.
Seventh: I'm sure there's lots of missing stuff. Not every extension has been
rewriten. If you can take it as a brave foolish effort of organization and stay
with the older code. What I don't want is people to expect this code to do
better cross-browsing than the older does. It is an initial release.
Eigth: Any feedback is welcome. Constructive and destructive. If I couldn't
take criticism or flaming I would be here in the first place :). I've got some
things pending ( a definitive DOM event bubbling fix, this time I've got it by
the balls, I promise ) that I would want to implement this week.
That said, here goes a bit of description:
DynObject: everything is now a dynobject. A DynObject is an object that manages
a list of children DynObjects, proving the addChild and delete stuff. A destroy
method has been provided. It doesn't work very well, but since now EVERYTHING
is a DynObject and there's one single hierarchy of DynObjects, once the destroy
method works then the memory issues should vanish.
Identifiers. Each Dynbject automatically receives a unique identifier during
contruction. It is always available ( before and after creation ) and should
remove the need of explicity setting pointers to global variables an other
reated tricks maily used in setTimeout animations.
DynAPI: dynapi is the same it was ( with slight modifications allwing
extensions to add custom code to the onload method ) but it inherits from
DynObject. To the DynAPI you add Childs which are DynDocuments. To DynDocuments
you will add DynLayers, you get the point.
DynDocument: more or less the same
DynLayer: much nicer code, much faster creation code. The code that changes
properties is the same, still have to see that, only creation and deletion has
been rewriten.
Events: now a separate module that is not manadatory. You can include the
simple.js package and then when you do a invokevent("create") object.oncreate()
is executed. You can include listeners.js and then you've got the listener
stuff. This does not provide mouse support but liustenrs to default events such
as create. Include mouse.js and then you've got mouse events. Include
keyboard.js and you get keyboard events.
Drag: still pending. Sorry
GUI: included the buttonimage example as well as the images that go with it.
Hey Raymond, we hadn't forgotten after all.
-- Where to find: available through CVS as module 'dynapix'
Ok, there you go. Shall the battle begin.
( takes deep breath, looks around, panics and runs away )
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