Store "templates" of children - javascript

I am new to JavaScript so forgive me if the question comes around as dumb.
I know that appendChild() allows me to add a child element to an existing element. However, the problem is that I want to add an element which has an image on the left and a series of text boxes on the right and I need to add it over and over again on button click.
Adding simple elements like p, a , etc can be done by a single call to appendChild(), however for the above scenario, it will be a little messy.
Is there some way that I can define the custom element that I want to append and then just add it with a single call to appendChild()

Are you using jQuery? If it is a really complicated template, you could use .load() to ajax in an template and populate it with whatever you have to. You wouldn't need to dynamically create all of the elements using javascript, only populate it. This would would also allow you to change your template if need be very easily.

It seems you need cloneNode:
target.appendChild(template.cloneNode(true)); // If you want to clone template
// with all its descendants
target.appendChild(template.cloneNode(false)); // If you want to clone template
// without its descendants

I do this quite a bit. My code generally looks like this:
<div class="template" style="display: none;">stuff</div>
then:
$('.template').clone(true).removeClass('template').show().appendTo(someElement);
Since you're not using jQuery, have a look at the clone function here:
http://code.jquery.com/jquery-1.11.0.js
(search for "clone: function" to find it)
You can steal the relevant bits if you can't actually use jQuery itself.

Related

How to use common js function for two divs containig elements of identical ids?

I have common jQuery function and two div tags. Both div tags have different names but both containing elements of identical ids now i want to use this common Jquery function for them both?
I have implemented common function but it's not working for both.
Here's link to my jsfiddle -jsfiddle.net/xS7zF/1/
In my jsfiddle there are two div tags namely example1 and example2 and both tags have elements of identical ids. Function is working fine for first div but not for second.
please help me to sort out this.
Yeah, under the hood, jQuery selection on an ID will use the Document.GetElementById() function implemented by the browser, which is really fast, but (i guess depending on the browser) will stop after it finds the first element, since ID's should be unique and no further searching is needed after the first one is found.
For instance, rename the divs with id="eb" to class="eb" and you can still target specific elements using $("#example1 .eb") and $("#example2 .eb")
UPDATE:
Using your new Fiddle I created this: http://jsfiddle.net/xS7zF/5/
I cleaned up a lot of code and hopefully you can see what I have done. I changed all elements that appear twice from id to class. Now, when you attach an event to an element using $(".classname").click(), it attaches to all the elements. In the handler function where you set HTML and do your show()/hide(), you don't target a specific element using it's ID, but you find it relative to the element that does the event. You can do this using parent(), parentsUntil(), next(), find(), etc. Check jQuery docs for all possibilities. So for instance, the change-handler attaches to all inputs with name=Assets. But instead of doing $("#b1").show(), I go to the parent of the specific input that fires using $(this).parent(). Then I find the element with a class=".b1", which it will only find the one that is next to this specific input and I set the HTML to just that element.
Since there is another input, the same actions happen when THAT input changes, but instead it finds IT's parent, and finds the element with class=".b1" that is next to IT. So both divs with input are contained since they act on elements relative to itself and not across the document.
For extra fun and to show you how flexible this way of programming is, here is a fiddle with the Javascript-code unchanged, but with the exact same question-div copied 8 times. No matter how many times you repeat this, the same code will act on as many divs as you create since everything works relative. http://jsfiddle.net/xS7zF/7/
Hopefully this helps, the rest is up to you!
ID's must be unique, you should not repeat them. You could replace id with class and in the jQuery function do (".ub").each() or manually referencing the object using eq(x). e.g. (".ub").eq(1).
You shouldn't assign same id's to different elements.
You CAN but you SHOULDN'T. Instead of giving the same id, use class
IDs must be unique, try fix this, change to classes.
You can try something like this:
$("div div:first-child")
instead of
$("#eb")
But depends of the rest of your page code. So, change to classes first and use
$(".eb")
when jQuery / javascript find the first ID it would ignore the rest, please read more about it
http://www.w3schools.com/tags/att_global_id.asp

Why .closest(selector) returns more than one value?

Here is a part of my html. (it is written using ejs)
<div class="objAddDiv">
<tr><td><button class="addObj">Do this action</button></td></tr>
<table><div class="objects"></div></table>
</div>
I have several objAddDiv divs on this page. Each has the same structure inside of it. I use .append() to add more ejs to .objects. I am having a hard time adding to only the .objects div that is inside of the same div as the button. I tried doing the following
".addObj click": function(el, element){
$(".addObj").closest(".objAddDiv").find(".objects").append(//my ejs utility here)
}
The problem is that $(".addObj").closest(".objAddDiv") returns all .objAddDiv on the page. I have looked at the jquery documentation for .closest and it says closest should only return one element. Is there a better way to do this? What am I doing wrong. (these are not my real class names btw)
It's because you are calling that method on every element with a class of 'addObj':
For each element in the set, get the first element that matches the selector by testing the element itself and traversing up through its ancestors in the DOM tree.
So you get the closest objAddDiv to each addObj element.
Assuming you are doing this inside the click event of the button use this to get the correct element:
$(this).closest(".objAddDiv").find(".objects").append(//my ejs utility here)
Here is the answer that I figured out (for anyone who comes next) I needed to use the element I passed into the function:
el.closest(".objAddDiv").find(".objects").append(//ejs append stuff)

How to get element from template by javascript?

I dont know good method how to get DOM element from template by javascript.
Example template:
<script id = "template" type="text/template">
<div>text1</div>
<div>text2</div>
<div>text3</div>
</script>
For example i want get div with "text2"
There is ways which i know, all of them are bad:
Add "class" to all elements - it breaks semantics (class created for CSS). In big projects you must use very long names for classes, its very inconvenient.
Get element by his number (index) - when adding a new element, you must rewrite old numbers in your code.
I see a couple of options:
If you don't want to use class , you can use a data-* attribute.
Assuming you load the template once and then duplicate its contents as desired, you could put id values on the elements in the template, which you then remove when cloning them and adding them to the document (so you don't end up with the same id on more than one copy of the element, which would be invalid and probably counterproductive).
Maybe you can also create as many templates as you need.
One for each div.
If you need to get each div at a time you must set ids to them ... of course you can also browse the dom inside script element to find the one you're interested in ...
Home this helps
Regards
mimiz

How can I access a particular div on a page which has the same id in two places?

This is the same question as this:
Referring to a div inside a div with the same ID as another inside another
except for one thing.
The reason there are two elements with the same ID is because I'm adding rows to a table, and I'm doing that by making a hidden div with the contents of the row as a template. I make a new div, copy the innerhtml of the template to my new div, and then I just want to edit bits of it, but all the bits have the same ID as the template.
I could dynamically create the row element by element but it's a VERY complex row, and there's only a few things that need to be changed, so it's a lot easier to just copy from a template and change the few things I need to.
So how do I refer to the elements in my copy, rather than the template?
I don't want to mess up the template itself, or I'll never be able to get at the bits for a second use.
Or is there another simpler way to solve the problem?
It will probably just be easiest when manipulating the innerHtml to do a replace on the IDs for that row. Maybe something like...
var copiedRow = templateRow.innerHTML.replace(/id=/g,"$1copy")
This will make the copied divs be prefixed with "copy". You can develop this further for the case that you have multiple copies by keeping a counter and adding that count variable to the replace() call.
When you want to make a template and use it multiple times its best to make it of DOM, in a documentFragment for example.
That way it doesn't respond to document.getElementById() calls in the "live" DOM.
I made an example here: http://jsfiddle.net/PM5544/MXHRr/
id's should be unique on the page.
PM5544...
In reality, there's no use to change the ID to something unique, even though your document may not be valid.
Browsers' selector engines treat IDs pretty much the same as class names. Thus, you may use
document.querySelector('#myCopy #idToLookFor');
to get the copy.
IDs on a page are supposed to be unique, even when you clone them from a template.
If you dynamically create content on your page, then you must change the id of your newly cloned elements to something else. If you want to access all cloned elements, but not the template, you can add a class to them, so you can refer to all elements with that class:
var clonedElement = template.cloneNode(yes); // make a deep copy
clonedElement.setAttribute("id", "somethingElse"); // change the id
clonedElement.setAttribute("class",
clonedElement.getAttribute("class") + " cloned"
);
To access all cloned elements by classname, you can use the getElementsByClassName method (available in newer browsers) or look at this answer for a more in-depth solution: How to getElementByClass instead of GetElementById with Javascript?
Alternatively, if you have jQuery available, you can do this is far less lines of code:
$("#template").clone().attr("id","somethingElse")
.addClass("cloned").appendTo("#someDiv");
The class lookup is even simpler:
$(".cloned").doSomethingWithTheseElements();
Try to avoid using IDs in the child elements of the cloned structure, as all ids of the cloned element should be changed before adding the clone to the page. Instead, you can refer to the parent element using the new id and traverse the rest of the structure using classnames. Class names do not need to be unique, so you can just leave them as they are.
If you really must use ID's (or unique "name" attributes in form fields), I can strongly suggest using a framework like jQuery or Prototype to handle the DOM traversal; otherwise, it is quite a burden to resolve all the cross-browser issues. Here is an example of some changes deeper in the structure, using jQuery:
$("#template").clone().attr("id","somethingElse")
.addClass("cloned") // add a cloned class to the top element
.find("#foo").attr("id","bar").end() // find and modify a child element
.appendTo("#someDiv"); // finally, add the node to the page
Check out my ugly but functional cheese. I wrote a function that works like getelementbyid, but you give it a start node instead of the document. Works like a charm. It may be inefficient but I have great faith in the microprocessors running today's browsers' javascript engines.
function getelement(node, findid)
{
if (node)
if (node.id)
if (node.id == findid)
return node;
node = node.firstChild;
while(node)
{
var r = getelement(node, findid);
if (r != null)
return r;
node = node.nextSibling;
}
return null;
}
When you copy the row, don't you end up having a reference to it? At that point can't you change the ID?

browsing through nodes

this is what an html structure of the webpage looks like:
<body>
<form>
<input type='file'/>
</form>
<div id='list'>
<div>value here<input id='delete' type='button'/></div>
</div>
</body>
i have found javascript code that triggers on 'delete' button click and removes input 'file' element. it uses this piece of code where element is input 'file' mentioned above:
deleteButton.onclick=function(){this.parentNode.element.parentNode.removeChild(
this.parentNode.element );}
i am trying to understand logic(rules) behind 'this.parentNode.element' ? why not accessing element directly 'element.parentNode.remove...'
many thanks
i am trying to understand logic(rules) behind 'this.parentNode.element' ?
There's no element property on the Node, Element, HTMLElement, or HTMLDivElement interfaces. So my guess would be that elsewhere in that code, you'll find something that's explicitly adding that property to the element instance of the div containing the button. You can do that, add arbitrary properties to element instances. These are frequently called "expando" properties and should be done very, very, very carefully.
Not the answer to the question, just opinion. It's better avoid constructions like
this.parentNode.element.parentNode
Because in case when you change your DOM structure, you will need rewrite you JS. So I think it's better to give id attributes to tags, and use next construction to get DOM element:
document.getElementById('element_id')
or if you will use some js framework (like jQuery) you can use even easier construction to get DOM element
$("#ement_id")
Ok, "removeChild" is a strange method, and quite probably, ill-conceived. It should look like:
<div>value here<input id='deleteMe' type='button'/></div>
var node = document.getElementById('deleteMe');
node.remove(); // <--- does not exist, but sure would be nice!!!
No, instead we have to do these shenanigans:
var node = document.getElementById('deleteMe');
node.parentNode.removeChild(node); // verbose! Convoluted!
We have to get the node's parent, call the method, then refer to the node again. This doesn't look like any other DOM methods as far as I recall. The good news is you can make it happen all in one line, chained, like a jQuery method.
You are best served to start over or copy somebody else's code. The use of "this" means it was within an object (or class), referring to other methods or properties within that object. You should stick to non-object variables and functions for now.
Hope that helps.

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