Prototype’s Element.on with MooTools
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.
![Write Better JavaScript with Promises]()
You've probably heard the talk around the water cooler about how promises are the future. All of the cool kids are using them, but you don't see what makes them so special. Can't you just use a callback? What's the big deal? In this article, we'll...
![Camera and Video Control with HTML5]()
Client-side APIs on mobile and desktop devices are quickly providing the same APIs. Of course our mobile devices got access to some of these APIs first, but those APIs are slowly making their way to the desktop. One of those APIs is the getUserMedia API...
![Use Elements as Background Images with -moz-element]()
We all know that each browser vendor takes the liberty of implementing their own CSS and JavaScript features, and I'm thankful for that. Mozilla and WebKit have come out with some interesting proprietary CSS properties, and since we all know that cementing standards...
![Unicode CSS Classes]()
CSS class name structure and consistency is really important; some developers camelcase classnames, others use dashes, and others use underscores. One thing I've learned when toying around by HTML and CSS class names is that you can actually use unicode symbols and icons as classnames.
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?
@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.
@Lorenzo S.: If you want jQuery syntax in MooTools, have a look at this repository: http://github.com/cheeaun/mooj/blob/master/mooj.js
@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.
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?