Easy

Elements that abstract away from the DOM.

A set of classes that abstract away from the browser's document object model so that you can easily create elements with underlying DOM elements and the methods to manipulate them. It will not help you with the architecture of your large application. It is about the leaves of an application, not its branches.

If you like Easy you might like Easy with Style.

JSX support

There is now support for JSX in the form of Juxtapose. What this means is that Easy will now help you with the architecture of your large application. So although Easy elements will continue to work standalone, their use with Juxtapose is recommended.

Related projects

• Easy Layout Layout elements that work with CSS flexbox.
• Easy Navigation A responsive accordion and associated navigation.
• Easy File System A file system explorer and a rubbish bin.
• Easy RichTextarea A textarea element that handles and hands off events well.
• Easy Drag and Drop Drag and drop functionality for Easy elements.

Installation

You can install Easy with npm:

npm install easy

You can also clone the repository with Git...

git clone https://github.com/djalbat/easy.git

...and then install the dependencies with npm from within the project's root directory:

npm install

Example

There is a small development server that can be run from within the project's directory with the following command:

npm start

The example will then be available at the following URL:

http://localhost:8888

The source for the example can be found in the src/example.js file and correspondingsrc/example folder. You are encouraged to try the example whilst reading what follows. You can rebuild it on the fly with the following command:

npm run watch-debug

The development server will reload the page whenever you make changes.

One last thing to bear in mind is that this package is included by way of a relative rather than a package import. If you are importing it into your own application, however, you should use the standard package import.

Usage

Typically you should create a view and mount it to the DOM's body element. This can be done by instantiating the Body class and appending the view to it:

import { Body } from "easy";

import View from "./view";

const body = new Body();

body.mount(

  <View />

);

For more usage examples, see the Juxtapose documentation.

Creating elements

You can pass CSS-style selectors to constructors:

const link = new Link("#link", (event, element) => {

  event.preventDefault();

  console.log(element.getAttribute("href"))

});

Supported elements

• Body
• Button
• Checkbox
• Link
• Select
• Input
• Textarea
• window
• document

The Window and Document classes are not exported, only singletons, hence the lowercase. Note also that if the underlying window and document global objects are not defined, for whatever reason, then these singletons will also be undefined.

Obviously the list is incomplete. If you want to create other elements, you can extend the Element or InputElement classes.

Standard methods

Each class bar the Window, Document and TextElement classes has the following methods. They are taken from the Element class and are overridden in many cases, in which case the signatures may change:

• getDOMElement()
• getOffset()
• getBounds()
• getWidth(includeBorder = true)
• setWidth(width)
• getHeight(includeBorder = true)
• setHeight(height)
• hasAttribute(name)
• getAttribute(name)
• setAttribute(name, value)
• clearAttribute(name)
• addAttribute(name, value)
• removeAttribute(name)
• setClass(className)
• addClass(className)
• removeClass(className)
• toggleClass(className)
• hasClass(className)
• clearClasses()
• appendTo(parentElement)
• prependTo(parentElement)
• addTo(parentElement)
• removeFrom(parentElement)
• insertBefore(siblingElement)
• insertAfter(siblingElement)
• prepend(element)
• append(element)
• add(element)
• remove(element)
• show(displayStyle = 'block')
• hide()
• display(displayStyle)
• enable()
• disable()
• isEnabled()
• isDisabled()
• isDisplayed()
• isShowing()
• isHidden()
• style(style)
• html(html)
• css(css)
• blur()
• focus()
• hasFocus()
• getParentElement(selector = "*")
• getChildElements(selector = "*")
• getAscendantElements(selector = "*", height = Inifnity)
• getDescendantElements(selector = "*", depth = Infinity)
• getNextSiblingElement(selector = "*")
• getPreviousSiblingElement(selector = "*")
• getScrollTop()
• getScrollLeft()
• setScrollTop(scrollTop)
• setScrollLeft(scrollLeft)
• on(eventTypes, handler)
• off(eventTypes, handler)
• onClick(handler)
• offClick(handler)
• onKeyUp(handler)
• onKeyDown(handler)
• onMouseUp(handler)
• onMouseDown(handler)
• onMouseOver(handler)
• onMouseOut(handler)
• onMouseMove(handler)
• offMouseUp(handler)
• offMouseDown(handler)
• offMouseOver(handler)
• offMouseOut(handler)
• offMouseMove(handler)
• onScroll(handler)
• offScroll(handler)
• onResize(handler)
• offResize(handler)

Please note the following:

• The setWidth() and setHeight() methods take number arguments and prepend px to them. If you want to set the widths and heights of elements using something other than pixels, use the style() method.

• The html() and css() methods allow you to both get and set HTML and CSS, respectively. Their functionality is based on the jQuery methods of the same name. The style() method behaves similarly.

• The blur() and focus() events are defined on all elements, however they will not have an effect if the element in question cannot have the focus.

• The onResize() and offResize() methods are similarly defined on all elements, by way of a mixin. The resize functionality relies on attaching a child object to the element in question and therefore will not work for elements which cannot have child elements. In these cases, the onResize() and offResize() methods simply do nothing. Also, the aforementioned child object is given amongst others the style position: relative and therefore the element in question must be given either the position: relative or the position: absolute style in order for this trick to work.

The Input and Textarea classes also have the following methods, taken from the InputElement class:

• onChange(handler)
• offChange(handler)
• getValue()
• getSelectionStart()
• getSelectionEnd()
• isReadOnly()
• setValue(value)
• setSelectionStart(selectionStart)
• setSelectionEnd(selectionEnd)
• setReadOnly(readOnly)
• select()

The TextElement class has the following methods only:

• getText()
• setText(text)
• getOffset()
• getBounds()
• getWidth()
• getHeight()
• prependTo(parentElement)
• appendTo(parentElement)
• addTo(parentElement)
• removeFrom(parentElement)
• insertBefore(siblingElement)
• insertAfter(siblingElement)
• remove()

Each of the supported elements has methods specific to its function, check the source for details.

Building

Automation is done with npm scripts, have a look at the package.json file. The pertinent commands are:

npm run build-debug
npm run watch-debug

Acknowledgements

• The resize support is based on an idea from this post by Daniel Buchner.

• The SVG tag and attribute names were taken from Titus Wormer's svg-element-attributes package.

Contact

• james.smith@djalbat.com