Implementing jQuery’s “One” Functionality in MooTools

By  on  

I like the idea behind jQuery's "one" event method. You allow an event function to be triggered once per Element; after its initial run, the function is removed, never to be heard from again (a.k.a until the next page load). I think there are a lot of use cases for "one" so I've ported it to MooTools.

The MooTools JavaScript

/* one-time event occurrence */
Element.implement({
	one: function(ev,fn) {
		if(!this.oneEvents) { this.oneEvents = []; }
		var oneFunc = function(e) {
			if(!this.oneEvents.contains(fn)) {
				this.oneEvents.push(fn);
				fn.run(e);
			}
			return this;
		};
		this.addEvent(ev,oneFunc);
	}
});

The way I complete this is by storing all of the one events in the element's oneEvent property. I wrap the given function in another function that checks to see if the given function has been used yet. If the function hasn't been run, the event triggers it. If the function has been run, the function directs itself to ignore the occurrence.

The Usage

/* usage */
window.addEvent('domready',function() {
	var myFunc = function(e) {
		e.stop();
		alert('triggered!');
	};
	$$('a').each(function(link) {
		link.one('click',myFunc);
	});
});

I chose this example to show that the event will fire only once per element BUT will fire for each element if the same function is passed to multiple event.

Would you use this Element / Event method?

Recent Features

  • By
    How I Stopped WordPress Comment Spam

    I love almost every part of being a tech blogger:  learning, preaching, bantering, researching.  The one part about blogging that I absolutely loathe:  dealing with SPAM comments.  For the past two years, my blog has registered 8,000+ SPAM comments per day.  PER DAY.  Bloating my database...

  • By
    How to Create a Twitter Card

    One of my favorite social APIs was the Open Graph API adopted by Facebook.  Adding just a few META tags to each page allowed links to my article to be styled and presented the way I wanted them to, giving me a bit of control...

Incredible Demos

  • By
    Xbox Live Gamer API

    My sharpshooter status aside, I've always been surprised upset that Microsoft has never provided an API for the vast amount of information about users, the games they play, and statistics within the games. Namely, I'd like to publicly shame every n00b I've baptized with my...

  • By
    :valid, :invalid, and :required CSS Pseudo Classes

    Let's be honest, form validation with JavaScript can be a real bitch.  On a real basic level, however, it's not that bad.  HTML5 has jumped in to some extent, providing a few attributes to allow us to mark fields as required or only valid if matching...

Discussion

  1. Really cool idea, and nicely implemented. I’m not sure that I’d use that method name though – ‘one’ could mean anything. Maybe addEventOnce..?

  2. Hey David, I have a different implementation, which I called oneEvent(), that I’d like you to see. kthxbai

  3. You can do with removeEvent(). Simpler, faster & less code.

  4. Do you have the code somewhere Oskar?

  5. something like this?

    Element.implement({
        one:function(ev,fn){
            var oneFunc = function(e){
                fv.run(e,this);
                this.removeEvent(ev,oneFunc);
            }.bind(this);
            this.addEvent(ev,oneFunc);
            return this;
        }
    });
    
  6. should be fn not fv on the fourth line

  7. should also get the .live functionality added to mootools also, I saw it here: http://dev.k1der.net/dev/live-events-pour-moootools/

  8. The implementation Scott shared is exactly what I would expect to do. Simply wrap the event listener to remove the event when it’s fired.

  9. UPDATE: Aaron Newton mentioned that my above implementation would create a memory leak and give problems with “removeEvents”, so I may update my code above. Scott’s solution above is likely the best solution.

  10. Jesus DeLaTorre

    Would you mind sharing with us how this can create a memory leak?

  11. danik

    Thanks. I use both jQuery and Mootools, and sometimes need to “port” some code from one to other. Now it became simpler.

  12. Updating an old post…
    MooTools doesn’t use Native anymore, I had to change Scott’s solution first line to make it work (if you are not using compatibility mode in MooTools).

    [Element, Window, Document].invoke('implement', {
    

    Instead of

    Native.implement([Element, Window, Document, Events], {
    

    Also, Google’s hosted library (1.4.5) seems to be using compatibility mode.

    Feel free to correct me if I’m doing something wrong here.
    Final code :

    [Element, Window, Document, Events].invoke('implement', {
      one : function(type, fn) {
    	return this.addEvent(type, function() {
    	  this.removeEvent(type, arguments.callee);
    	  return fn.apply(this, arguments);
    	});
      }
    });
    

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