Prototype’s Element.on with MooTools

By  on  

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.

Recent Features

  • By
    CSS vs. JS Animation: Which is Faster?

    How is it possible that JavaScript-based animation has secretly always been as fast — or faster — than CSS transitions? And, how is it possible that Adobe and Google consistently release media-rich mobile sites that rival the performance of native apps? This article serves as a point-by-point...

  • By
    An Interview with Eric Meyer

    Your early CSS books were instrumental in pushing my love for front end technologies. What was it about CSS that you fell in love with and drove you to write about it? At first blush, it was the simplicity of it as compared to the table-and-spacer...

Incredible Demos

  • By
    Create Twitter-Style Dropdowns Using jQuery

    Twitter does some great stuff with JavaScript. What I really appreciate about what they do is that there aren't any epic JS functionalities -- they're all simple touches. One of those simple touches is the "Login" dropdown on their homepage. I've taken...

  • By
    Image Reflection with jQuery and MooTools

    One subtle detail that can make a big difference on any web design is the use of image reflections. Using them too often can become obnoxious but using reflections on large, "masthead" images is a classy enhancement. Unfortunately creating image reflections within your...

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. @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. 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?

Wrap your code in <pre class="{language}"></pre> tags, link to a GitHub gist, JSFiddle fiddle, or CodePen pen to embed!