jQuery.fn.pluginName = function() {
   //Do something weird here
};

Anyway, this is a “strange” syntax for the most of you who use jQuery with the familiar dollar $ sign. Let’s pass jQuery to a closure that maps it to the dollar sign, like this:

(function($) {
   $.fn.pluginName = function() {
      // Do something weird here
   };
})( jQuery );

You can pass a parameter right into the function() part of the declaration, right after the closure declaration. In the function body we can write actual plugin code. In this scope, the this keyword actually represents the jQuery object the plugin was invoked on, so you would not need to use $(this) again like you would do in other contexts… but it is still needed to maintain chanability in your plugin in order to pass a modified collection object to next method call. Here is an example of a plugin that underlines all passed elements:

(function( $ ){

  $.fn.underline = function() {  

    return this.each(function() {

      var $this = $(this);

      $this.css('text-decoration', 'underline');

    });

  };
})( jQuery );

Now, if you have a bunch of parameters you would like to pass to your plugin, it is not the best practice to do it directly in your plugin function signature. Instead, you can use $.extend to extend predefined default settings. Here’s an example:

(function( $ ){

  $.fn.underline = function( options ) {  

    var settings = {
      'parameter1' : 'value1',
      'parameter2' : 'value2'
    };

    return this.each(function() {
      if ( options ) {
        $.extend( settings, options );
      }

      // Plugin code goes here

    });

  };
})( jQuery );

Pretty easy, uh?

Cheers!

I took a look to W3C specifications and then “Ok, let’s give it a try! It can’t be that bad”. Turned on my computer, opened gedit and here we go, let’s code something!

First thing I’m complaining about: there are too many events! Drag, dragstart, dragend, dragenter, dragleave, dragover and, finally, drop. Ok, what the hell is this? Why so many events? Also, where is the difference between dragenter and dragover? I can’t tell, and I know that this is a young API but these kind of stuff should be simple to read and easy to implement. So, first of all, I would decrement the number of events.

Anyway, I coded something like this:


el = document.getElementById('dragelement');
el.addEventListener('dragstart', handleDragStart, false);
el.addEventListener('dragenter', handleDragEnter, false);
el.addEventListener('dragover', handleDragOver, false);
el.addEventListener('dragleave', handleDragLeave, false);
el.addEventListener('drop', handleDrop, false);
el.addEventListener('dragend', handleDragEnd, false);


Where dragelement is this stuff

<div id="dragelement" draggable="true">Hi, drag me somewhere</div>


Notice the draggable attribute: This is one of the features I actually like because it identifies wich elements in your DOM can be dragged from place to place – usefull with jquery selectors for instance.

I defined a simple handleDrop function with a simple alert(‘ok, element dropped’) inside it. Guess what? The event didn’t fire.

<mumble>Think about it</mumble>
<rtfm>Read specs, googling around</rtfm>

For the drop event to fire at all, you have to cancel the defaults of both the dragover and the dragenter event. That’s great, isn’t it? You gotta be kidding me.

Moving ahead. Next step is trying to get data from the dragged object. Here’s the insight of a drop event in chrome:

Well, this is a fucking mess. Where is the data about the element I’m dragging? Then I notice the dataTransfer property. The files field keeps a list of dragged files from your file system and types holds a list of MIME types found in the dragged element, whatever the hell it is. Cool, but to set arbitrary data (e.g. serialized objects from other applications or web pages) there is a method called setData(key,value). Not bad. But I must repeat myself and say that this API design is a fucking mess! To many layers, too many useless things. It is not simple to understand WHERE you place the data and HOW and in WICH EVENT you take it back. In fact, there was no data at all provided by the event. Maybe I did something wrong, but the point is how could I ever make everything just fine at first glance with this fucking shit!

Plus there are more problems. For instance, Safari is fucked up on this api and you must use the -khtml-user-drag: element; CSS style property on the draggable element for things to work. Thank you, Apple.

For the moment I won’t spend more time on this because, in my humble opinion, this is a part of HTML specification that should be revised from top to bottom. That’s it.

Many more features are already presents and I’m working on them. I’ll post updates as soon as I can

I recently got an Apple USB keyboard and plugged it to my linux box. It worked perfectly out of the box, except for less/greater and backslash/pipe keys. The solution is pretty easy to implement. Create a file named .Xmodmap in your user’s home.

cd
touch .Xmodmap

Now edit it with your favourite editor, let’s say nano for simplicity

nano .Xmodmap

Place this text inside it

keycode 49=less greater
keycode 94=backslash bar

Save the file, then restart your session by doing logoff and login. You’ll be asked to add available mod files to your session. Add .Xmodmap and press ok. You’re done

this._items = new Array();

this.length = function() {

return this._items.length;
};

}


Installing Docky’s version from AUR with yaourt (version 2.0.7) or by downloading the tarball here solves the problem. Now we’re waiting for the fix to be distributed on “extra” or “community” repositories as well.

$('li.timeline_element input').filter(function()
{
value = $(this).val();

var txt=new RegExp(regex,null);

}).parents('li').fadeIn();

Macbook from Apple

Ok I’ll start saying that maybe I had a little too much confidence on my ability to make things works 100% where they’re not supposed to. As I wrote in the past, I bought a Sony Vaio E Series to work out of my home – I mainly work on websites, advanced ph, html5, css3 and stuff. It shure has great hardware if you look at the specs. But here is the story: as far as you may know by reading my posts, I tried Ubuntu on it and then removed it waiting for some better video driver to come along. Plus, there was the audio and back lit problem, wich was solved in 9.10 and reappeared again on 10.04, wich is ridiculous. “Allright” I said “at least it should work just fine with windows 7, wich has all the goddamn drivers”. Actually it did but, believe it or not, after a month of use I was unable to configure a simple PAM (php + apache + mysql) development environment! I did it thousands of times but on the Vaio E I just didn’t figure out how to make things work! Mysql libraries just didn’t load. This was unbelievable to me, I searched on google, I asked friends, collegues and various geeks but nobody was able to solve this.

Another thing that I didn’t appreciate at all: battery life. Sony declares 3 hours, but you’ll be in luck if you can stay one hour and a half without plugging the battery charger. It’s too fucking short life time in my opinion if you have to code stuff.

A month later, I sold the Vaio on ebay and bought the new MacBook Pro 13”. The hardware is not powerfull as Vaio’s, but I have to admit that:

• Battery life is enourmous, up to 9 hours while working
• System is fast and responsive
• Configuring PAM takes some time as on linux, but result is guaranteed

At the end of the story, I’m happy with Apple’s laptop and, wathever you like it or not, Linux and OSX are the best systems out there.

Also, there are so many performance problems that I don’t really know where they come from. One among all: is that possible that a simple insert query (for 800 rows) under mysql server took a second fraction on my macbook pro, wich has a stupid core 2 duo, and it takes over twenty seconds under linux?

I don’t even remember all the problems it gave me, but shure they the last one. Jaunty Jackalope was a very good release, and I really liked it. And before someone start saying that “Ehy, it’s Linux! It comes with no warranty!” I say that it’s not the warranty problem, it is that after months and a bunch of updates on PPAs problems are multiplying. I respect Canonical and Ubuntu, but I want something that I can get to work properly. Ubuntu 10.04 isn’t.