Update jQuery UI Widget Options

By  on  

We're all used to passing options when instantiating an object, whether it be JavaScript or any other language.  Whether or not you can update those options later is usually up to the framework, and somehow many wont let you update them once they've been passed in.  Depending on how the initialization of the object is done, sometimes that makes sense, but in most cases you should be able to update an option at any given time.

I recently needed to update a jQuery UI widget option and here's how you update any given option:

this.$editor.inlineEditor('option', 'forceOpen', true);

jQuery UI is mostly a legacy technology these days so I'm mostly passing this tip on for those having to maintain old code.  This does teach a good lesson:  always provide a method for modifying initial options, even if you don't foresee a reason to do so!

Recent Features

  • 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...

  • By
    Facebook Open Graph META Tags

    It's no secret that Facebook has become a major traffic driver for all types of websites.  Nowadays even large corporations steer consumers toward their Facebook pages instead of the corporate websites directly.  And of course there are Facebook "Like" and "Recommend" widgets on every website.  One...

Incredible Demos

  • By
    Creating the Treehouse Frog Animation

    Before we start, I want to say thank you to David for giving me this awesome opportunity to share this experience with you guys and say that I'm really flattered. I think that CSS animations are really great. When I first learned how CSS...

  • By
    Chris Coyier’s Favorite CodePen Demos

    David asked me if I'd be up for a guest post picking out some of my favorite Pens from CodePen. A daunting task! There are so many! I managed to pick a few though that have blown me away over the past few months. If you...

Discussion

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