Let me first say that the ResourceLoader [1] is a wonderful part of the software. Thanks
goes out to everyone who contributed to this project - it's made my life much better.
That being said, I don't think that I and my team have figure out how to properly take
advantage of its benefits.
At Vistaprint, we are currently using the ResourceLoader to load modules, some of which
contain JavaScript. The dependencies are made explicit in the registering of the
ResourceLoader, and they execute in the proper order on the client side. In many of these
JavaScript files we wrap our code in a jQuery .ready() callback [2]. Since these
JavaScript files have dependencies on one-another (as laid out in the RL,) they need to be
executed in the correct order to work properly. We're finding that when using
jQuery's .ready() (or similar) function, the callbacks seem to execute in different
(unexepected, browser-dependent) order. This causes errors.
Using the WikiEditor extension as a specific example:
Customizing the WikiEditor-toolbar is one of the specific cases where we've
encountered problems. First, the WikiEditor provides no good events to bind to once the
toolbar is loaded. This is not a problem because there is a documented work-around [3].
However, our JavaScript code needs to execute in the proper order, which it is not. We
have about four JavaScript files that add custom toolbars, sections, and groups.
My questions:
It recently dawned on me that executing our code within a $(document).ready(); callback
might not be necessary as the JavaScript for each ResourceLoader module is executed in its
own callback on the client-side. This should provide the necessary scope to avoid
clobbering global variables along with getting executed at the proper time. Is this a
correct assumption to make? Is it a good idea to avoid binding our code to jQuery's
ready event?
--Daniel (User:The Scientist)
[1]
http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/ResourceLoader
[2]
http://docs.jquery.com/Events/ready
[3]
http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:WikiEditor/Toolbar_customization#Mo…