Unobtrusive JavaScript and AJAX

Updated . Posted . Visible to the public. Deprecated.

We no longer use jQuery.

Some replacements for $.unobtrusive() are:

Attached (see below) is some code to allow using unobtrusive JavaScript on pages fetched with an AJAX call.

After you included it, you now do not use the usual

$(function() { 
  $('.some_tag').activateStuff(); 
});

any more, but instead you write

$.unobtrusive(function() {
  $(this).find('.some_tag').activateStuff();
});

that is

  • $.unobtrusive() instead of $()
  • don't do stuff to the whole page, but just to elements nested below $(this)

Normal pages work as before (your $.unobtrusive functions are called automatically), but you gain the option to manually run those by calling

$(newContent).activateUnobtrusiveJavascript(); 

You would always run this on any DOM-nodes you have just inserted.

Code for the helper

Copy this into your project:

    // Define $.unobtrusive() to register new element activation callbacks
    $.unobtrusive = function(callback) {
      $(document).on('activate-unobtrusive-javascript', function(event, root) {
        $(root).each(callback);
      });
    }
    
    // Define a function for all jQuery collections to manually run activation callbacks on that element
    $.fn.activateUnobtrusiveJavascript = function() {
      this.each(function() {
        $(document).trigger('activate-unobtrusive-javascript', this);
      });
    }
    
    // Activate the entire DOM on initial page load
    $(function() {
      $(document).activateUnobtrusiveJavascript();
    });
Profile picture of Tobias Kraze
Tobias Kraze
Last edit
Michael Leimstädtner
Keywords
jQuery
License
Source code in this card is licensed under the MIT License.
Posted by Tobias Kraze to makandra dev (2010-08-24 17:21)