orsa-dom
v0.0.1
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Orsa DOM
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Orsa DOM
The Orsa DOM is the central element of the Orsa system. It's the reason that folks use Orsa.
The Orsa DOM system includes these classes:
| Class Name | Description |
|------|------|
| OrsaBase | This is the base node type. It manages the persisted attributes of the node, as well as emitting events, saving/restoring, and conversion to a JSON object. |
| Element | Derived from OrsaBase this object also contains metadata
and children
. |
| Project | Derived from Element the Project
node type includes; name
, localPath
and version
as persisted attributes. |
| File | Derived from Element the File
node type includes; localPath
, relativePath
, name
and mimeType
as persisted attributes. |
Important methods
Elements support these accessor and methods:
| Method/Field | Description |
|-----|-----|
| type
| The type of node. Important types are File.TYPE
and Project.TYPE
. |
| toObject()
| Returns a JSON version of the node and it's children. |
| match(pattern)
| Returns true if an element matches the keys of the pattern. |
| save()
and restore(data)
| Saves and restores a DOM structure. |
| metadata.get(key)
| Gets a metadata value. |
| metadata.set(key, value)
| Sets a metadata value. |
| children.add(elem)
| Adds a child. |
| children.toArray()
| Returns the array of children. |
Persisted Attributes
Persisted attributes are metadata values that are so critical to the function of the system that they are promoted out of the metadata
and onto the DOM element itself as direct attributes. For Project
nodes this includes; name
, localPath
and version
. For File
node type includes; localPath
, relativePath
, name
and mimeType
.
Metadata
Metadata is a critical part of the DOM, it's where plugins store everything they learn about a file or a project. Metadata supports two methods set
and get
:
Metadata key names
Critical Note: Control your key names for metadata! Do not use user-generated data for key names. User generated data can contain special characters like .
or /
that can mess up downstream systems.
Instead of doing something like this:
const myModuleName = 'lodash.get';
const versions = {};
versions[myModuleName] = '0.0.1'; // This is bad
domElement.metadata.set('moduleVersions', versions);
Instead do:
const myModuleName = 'lodash.get';
const versions = [];
versions.push({
name: myModuleName,
version: '0.0.1',
});
domElement.metadata.set('moduleVersions', versions);
set(key, value, options)
Sets a key on metadata structure. The key is in lodash's set format. options
only supports one option at the moment, which is temporary
. If temporary
is set then the data is not output during save/restore or in toObject()
. This is handy when you have big transient structures, like the AST, which are handy during processing, but which should not be stored.
Here is an example set:
domElement.metadata.set('foo.bar.baz', 15);
This would result in:
foo: {
bar: {
baz: 15,
},
},
In the toObject()
output.
Here is an example of a set of a temporary value:
domElement.metadata.set('foo.bar.baz', 15, {
temporary: true,
});
This key would not be output from toObject()
.
get(key, value)
Gets a key from a metadata structure. The key is in lodash's get format.
Here is an example get:
domElement.metadata.get('foo.bar.baz');
Children
Subclasses of Element
support children. You can add a child this way:
const realNewElement = domElement.children.add(newElement);
A really important note when it comes to adding a child is the merging behavior (described below). That's why the expression above says realNewElement
is the output of add
. When you add an element it's possible that instead of being added it will be merged with an existing element. In either case the realNewElement
is the element you should use from that point until the end of your plugins interaction with the element.
You can access the set children on an element this way:
domElement.children.toArray();
Children Merging
If you are writing a plugin that adds elements to the DOM, for example a project or file scanner, then you will invariably want to handle the "add only if it's not already there" use case. Well, good on yah, but you don't need to do that. The RootElement
and Project
elements are pre-set so that if you add an element that has the same persisted attributes as another child that is already there then your new element is merged with the original.
Other classes
This package also includes ElementSet, which manages the children array of Elements, MetaData which manages the metadata object, and RootElement which handles creating elements by type name when saving and restoring the DOM.