amd-plugins

A collection of handy plugins for AMD loaders.

Overview

These plugins are things we've found useful in our development of large-scale web applications with complex dependencies and configuration. When we converted our codebase to AMD as a module management method, we realized the plugin capability opened a number of doors for application configuration, with the added bonus of built-in cache management by the loader.

ioc.js

The IOC plugin allows for Spring-like injection of dependencies. The basic idea is that you define each of your JavaScript modules as constructors (like classes), and then use Inversion-of-Control to get instances of them passed to other modules that need them. The plugin supports a simple reference mechanism to reference other beans in bean's configuration parameters.

jsonschema.js

The jsonschema plugin reads JSON Schema files (http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-zyp-json-schema-03) and recursively resolves any $ref properties to load an entire schema file including external schemas. It returns a live JavaScript object that can be used by JSON Schema libraries such as validators or the other JSON Schema processors we've published (https://github.com/atsid/circuits-js, https://github.com/atsid/schematic-js, https://github.com/atsid/bullhorn-js).

jsonschema TODO

The plugin only does simple processing of the $ref values, and does not yet attempt to do full resolution of identifiers such as self reference (#). However, a formatter function can be supplied that manipulates the schema name, so advanced processing or transformation can be done if required.

properties.js

The properties plugin loads Java-style name=value pair properties files and turns them in the JSON.

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.properties

windower.js

This is a plugin to provide helpful utilities for cross-window work. It includes safe (origin restricted) postMessage capability, as well as a shared data store that sits in the topmost window but is accessible to all children (also via postMessage).

Functions exposed are:

• send (message): sends a JSON message to all windows managed by the topmost.
• listen (callback): registers a callback for messages coming from any window managed by topmost.
• unlisten(): unhooks callback for messages.
• set (key, data): sets a data payload in the store, using a key
• get (key, callback): requests a data payload from the store, using a key. Data is handed to callback when ready..

TODO

Need to move the require.js file into a lib directory so it is more clear that it is an external dependency.

Compatibility

ECMA5 compatibility is assumed - if you need to use in a legacy browser, consider a shim.

License

This software is licensed under the Apache 2.0 license (http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0).