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Prototype’s Element.on with MooTools

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Prototype 1.7RC1 was released on Monday. While the big news with this release appears to be the implementation of John Resig's Sizzle selector engine, what caught my eye was the new on method. This new Element.on method is very similar to Prototype's Element.observe method but with a few enhancements (event relaying, event stop). While I don't necessarily care about the enhancements, I simply love that the event method is called "on." Using "on" as the method name makes it sound more like the event itself. Here's how easy it is to use "on" instead of "addEvent" for your events.

The MooTools JavaScript

/* the directive */
Element.alias('addEvent','on');

/* the usage */
$('myElement').on('click',fn);

Using on instead of addEvent is as easy as a quick MooTools Element.alias directive.

It's weird that I like "on" so much considering a generally don't like jQuery's css and attr methods. Oh well. Congrats to the Prototype team for their impending release.

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Discussion

  1. Lorenzo S.

    Hi David. Nice idea. I like also css() and other jQuery methods’ name (for their simplicity), but I prefer Mootools core. So, why not:

    Element.alias('addEvent','on'); 
Element.implement({
  'css': function(p, v) {
    if (v == undefined) return this.getStyle(p);
    else return this.setStyle(p, v);
  },
  'attr': function(a, v) {
    if (v == undefined) return this.getProperty(a);
    else return this.setProperty(a, v);
  },
  'html': function(h) {
    if (h == undefined) return this.get('html');
    else return this.set('html', h);
});

    What do you think?

  2. David Walsh

    @Lorenzo S.: I’ve done posts like that in the past. I can’t stand .css and .attr for MooTools, but what you have would work.

  3. Arian

    @Lorenzo S.: If you want jQuery syntax in MooTools, have a look at this repository: http://github.com/cheeaun/mooj/blob/master/mooj.js

  4. Nikolaj

    @David

    Fully agree with “on” seems acceptable, whereas .css, .attr etc. doesn’t :)

    I guess the reason you might like “on” – when not other jQuery shortcuts – might be due to we’re used to “on” in “onClick” etc. for regular JavaScript, which probably makes the mind having positive thoughts.

  5. Richard

    Great advice, thanks a lot.

    However, how much slower will this be? I mean, will on() trigger addEvent() and that in turn will trigger whatever internal functions are used?

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