JavaScript Development
 
Forums: » Register « |  User CP |  Games |  Calendar |  Members |  FAQs |  Sitemap |  Support | 
User Name:
Password:
Remember me
Go Back   Dev Shed Forums > Web Design > JavaScript Development
Reload this Page

Javascript object assignment

Discuss Javascript object assignment in the JavaScript Development forum on Dev Shed.
Javascript object assignment JavaScript Development forum discussing JavaScript and DHTML, AJAX, and issues such as coding cross-browser JavaScript.

Reply
Add This Thread To:
  Del.icio.us   Digg   Google   Spurl   Blink   Furl   Simpy   Y! MyWeb 
« Previous Thread | Next Thread »  
Thread Tools Search this Thread Rate Thread Display Modes
 
Unread Dev Shed Forums Sponsor:
  #1  
Old April 1st, 2002, 05:46 PM
torrent torrent is offline
Contributing User
Dev Shed Newbie (0 - 499 posts)
  
Join Date: Jan 2002
Location: UK
Posts: 59 torrent User rank is Just a Lowly Private (1 - 20 Reputation Level) 
Time spent in forums: < 1 sec
Reputation Power: 7
Javascript object assignment
Hi all,

How come when I do this:

document.MM_Time[0][1].obj = document.all['sometext'];
alert(document.MM_Time[0][1].obj);

I see the result sometext but if I do this:

document.MM_Time[0][1].obj = document.all[myObject.name];
alert(document.MM_Time[0][1].obj);

All I see in the alert box is [object] (literally)? Why isn't it allowing me to assign the string name contained in my object's 'name' property to the document.all[] object?

Any help greatly appreciated.
Thanks
__________________
Torrent
www.ski-info-online.com

...silently carving the soft deep powder...
Reply With Quote
  #2  
Old April 1st, 2002, 06:04 PM
mrrichardfeder mrrichardfeder is offline
Contributing User
Dev Shed Novice (500 - 999 posts)
  
Join Date: Nov 2001
Posts: 765 mrrichardfeder User rank is Just a Lowly Private (1 - 20 Reputation Level) 
Time spent in forums: 3 m 45 sec
Reputation Power: 7
Not enough info to really answer your question. What is 'sometext'? document.all[] is a little more than just an object: it's Internet Explorer's mother-of-all-collections; it's managed by the system and can't simply be assigned objects as if it were a user-created array. Also - the .alert() function can only display a string value, so various .toString() methods are routinely invoked when you attempt to alert() some value or other; the displayed string may not be indicative of what's really being referenced.
Reply With Quote
  #3  
Old April 1st, 2002, 06:17 PM
torrent torrent is offline
Contributing User
Dev Shed Newbie (0 - 499 posts)
  
Join Date: Jan 2002
Location: UK
Posts: 59 torrent User rank is Just a Lowly Private (1 - 20 Reputation Level) 
Time spent in forums: < 1 sec
Reputation Power: 7
Yep, sorry perhaps a bit of background would help. The sometext is actually a name for a "layer" that I am animating. If I hard-code the name it all works perfectly (my first example above).

What I have though is an object I created myself. Here it is in longhand:

var ImageLayer = new Object();
ImageLayer.name = "imgLayer1";
ImageLayer.image = "demo_files/biglayer22.gif";
ImageLayer.sPos = 15;
ImageLayer.ePos = -100;
ImageLayer.ypos = TextLayer.ypos;
ImageLayer.width = 145;
ImageLayer.height = 22;
ImageLayer.showILayer = showILayer;

Instead of hard-coding the layer's name with document.all['sometext'], I am attempting to use the name contained with my object, i.e. document.all[ImageLayer.name]

For info, here is the code in that area of the function (although the if's and elses merely take care of browser incompatibilities):
Code:
if (ns4)
        document.MM_Time[0][2].obj = document[ImageLayer.name];
    else if (ns5)
        document.MM_Time[0][2].obj = document.getElementById(ImageLayer.name);
    else
        document.MM_Time[0][2].obj = document.all ? document.all[ImageLayer.name] : null;
    document.MM_Time[0][2].keyFrames = new Array(25, 39);
    document.MM_Time[0][2].values = new Array(2);


Does this make more sense? Interesting what you say about the alert() but as you can see the value should be string.

Thanks again for your help.
Reply With Quote
  #4  
Old April 1st, 2002, 06:37 PM
mrrichardfeder mrrichardfeder is offline
Contributing User
Dev Shed Novice (500 - 999 posts)
  
Join Date: Nov 2001
Posts: 765 mrrichardfeder User rank is Just a Lowly Private (1 - 20 Reputation Level) 
Time spent in forums: 3 m 45 sec
Reputation Power: 7
Getting warmer....but you've still left out the most important thing: the (HTML) Element. Your ImageLayer object is simply a custom JS object for managing the actual browser object; without seeing the code that instantiates that object, it's hard to judge what's happening. Maybe I'm missing something (been a long weekend).
Reply With Quote
  #5  
Old April 2nd, 2002, 03:08 AM
torrent torrent is offline
Contributing User
Dev Shed Newbie (0 - 499 posts)
  
Join Date: Jan 2002
Location: UK
Posts: 59 torrent User rank is Just a Lowly Private (1 - 20 Reputation Level) 
Time spent in forums: < 1 sec
Reputation Power: 7
Those long weekends certainly do numb the mind. That's probably the cause of this whole problem
Anyway, here's more of the picture...

Function which displays the layer:
Code:
function showTLayer() {
  document.write("<div id=\"" + this.name + "\" style=\"Z-INDEX: -2; LEFT: " + this.xpos + "px; WIDTH: " + this.width + "px; POSITION: absolute; TOP: " + this.ypos + "px; HEIGHT: " + this.height + "px\">");
  document.write("<div align=<center><p>" + this.text + "</p></div></div>");
}  

function showILayer() {
  document.write("<div id=\"" + this.name + "\" style=\"Z-INDEX: -1; LEFT: " + this.xpos + "px; WIDTH: " + this.width + "px; POSITION: absolute; TOP: " + this.ypos + "px; HEIGHT: " + this.height + "px; BACKGROUND-COLOR: #435b81; layer-background-color: #435B81 visibility: hidden;\">");
  document.write("<img onMouseOver=\"MM_initTimelines(); MM_timelinePlay('Timeline1')\" height=\"" + this.height + "\" src=\"" + this.image + "\" width=\"" + this.width + "\">");
  document.write("</div>");
}
...and here are the object definitions again and the evals which invoke the layers to be displayed:
Code:
var TextLayer = new Object();
TextLayer.name =new String("txtLayer");
TextLayer.text = "<font face=\"verdana\" size=\"1\" color=\"#EEFFFF\">Big Resources</font>";
TextLayer.xpos = 53;
TextLayer.ypos = 167;
TextLayer.width = 120;
TextLayer.height = 25;
TextLayer.showTLayer = showTLayer;

var ImageLayer = new Object();
ImageLayer.name = new String("imgLayer");
ImageLayer.image = "demo_files/biglayer22.gif";
ImageLayer.sPos = 15;
ImageLayer.ePos = -100;
ImageLayer.ypos = TextLayer.ypos;
ImageLayer.width = 145;
ImageLayer.height = 22;
ImageLayer.showILayer = showILayer;

eval ("TextLayer.showTLayer()");
eval ("ImageLayer.showILayer()");
The part of the code where the problem occurs relates only to the image layer (ImageLayer.name). I have included the text layer references
for your info. If you would like to download the whole code (in its unfinished state) then you can pick it up from here

Appreciate your persistance with this
Reply With Quote
  #6  
Old April 2nd, 2002, 04:04 AM
torrent torrent is offline
Contributing User
Dev Shed Newbie (0 - 499 posts)
  
Join Date: Jan 2002
Location: UK
Posts: 59 torrent User rank is Just a Lowly Private (1 - 20 Reputation Level) 
Time spent in forums: < 1 sec
Reputation Power: 7
You were right (Richard?)!
The problem is that the alert() can not display the contents of objects. It displays [object] instead. Sooo....I got hold of a script that prints
the contents of any specified object. I think this is such a useful snippet that I have included it here for others to use.
Code:
function dumpProps(obj_name) {
 if (!obj_name) obj_name = prompt ("Enter object" , "document");
 if (!obj_name) return false;
 var result = ""
 var kount = 0
 var obj = eval(obj_name);
 var objStr = '' + obj_name;
 if (typeof(obj) == "object")
    for (var j in obj) {
        kount++;
        if (kount > 20) {
           alert(result);
           kount = 0;
           result = "";
        }
        if (typeof(obj[j]) != "unknown")
            result += objStr + "." + j + " = " + obj[j] + "\n";
    }
 else
    result += "Value of " + objStr + " is " + obj;
 alert(result);
}
You invoke it like: dumpProps(Object), e.g. dumpProps(document.MM_Time[0][1].obj);

Unfortunately, all this has done is show me the underlying problem I have isn't where I expected it to be. If you run the script
(available at the url in my previous post) and mouseOver the first icon down on the left, you will see it moves the wrong layer.
Any ideas why that is?

Apologies in advance for the srappiness of the script. As you will be able to tell it's very much in development.
Reply With Quote
  #7  
Old April 2nd, 2002, 06:29 PM
mrrichardfeder mrrichardfeder is offline
Contributing User
Dev Shed Novice (500 - 999 posts)
  
Join Date: Nov 2001
Posts: 765 mrrichardfeder User rank is Just a Lowly Private (1 - 20 Reputation Level) 
Time spent in forums: 3 m 45 sec
Reputation Power: 7
Here's a quick observation: you're on the right track to writing object-oriented JavaScript,
but you've only gone part of the way. What you've got is a
sort-of-hybrid of procedural JS and something truly object-centric.
IMO, might as well go whole-hog on this; create a class and use it:

function TextLayer(id,HTML,wid,hgt,Xpos,Ypos) {
this.id = id;
this.HTML = HTML;
this.xpos = Xpos;
this.ypos = Ypos;
this.width = wid;
this.height = hgt;
this.showTLayer = TL_showTLayer;
}

function TL_showTLayer() {....etc.

var TL1 = new TextLayer('TL1' , '<font face="verdana" size="1" color="#EEFFFF">Big Resources</font>' , 120 , 25 , 53 , 167);

Among many advantages: you can create a custom .toString() method
for the class that displays data about the object instance in a format that you design.
Way too involved to go much deeper here; here's a good start (if you're interested):

http://www.webreference.com/js/column79/index.html
http://developer.netscape.com/evang...t/?cp=brictrdv3
http://www.dansteinman.com/dynduo/en/newobjects.html
Reply With Quote
  #8  
Old April 3rd, 2002, 02:02 AM
torrent torrent is offline
Contributing User
Dev Shed Newbie (0 - 499 posts)
  
Join Date: Jan 2002
Location: UK
Posts: 59 torrent User rank is Just a Lowly Private (1 - 20 Reputation Level) 
Time spent in forums: < 1 sec
Reputation Power: 7
Once again you are spot on. Last evening I discovered the way I
had implemented the oo code in javascript was wrong. This was
why it was moveing the wrong layer. I have since changed it but
have a couple of small bugs I am working through to get me back
to where I thought I was at.

In all honesty this was a bit of an ambitious intro into
javascript Still I am learning loads on the way and am now
determined to see it through. I'm very grateful for the help you
have given, you certainly cleared up a few grey areas for me.

I'm off to work now but when I return later I will pickup your
sample oo code and compare mine against it to see what else I
can learn/implement.

Tx again.
Reply With Quote
Reply

Viewing: Dev Shed Forums > Web Design > JavaScript Development > Javascript object assignment

« Previous Thread | Next Thread »

Thread Tools  Search this Thread 
Search this Thread:

Advanced Search
Display Modes  Rate This Thread 
Linear Mode Linear Mode
Rate This Thread:


Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts
vB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off
View Your Warnings | New Posts | Latest News | Latest Threads | Shoutbox
Forum Jump


Forums: » Register « |  User CP |  Games |  Calendar |  Members |  FAQs |  Sitemap |  Support | 
  
 





© 2003-2008 by Developer Shed. All rights reserved. DS Cluster 5 hosted by Hostway. 
Stay green...Green IT