Yahoo! User Interface Library Revealed!

Posted by Neil Crosby on March 4, 2006 02:45 PM

A couple of weeks ago, Yahoo released their JavaScript user interface library to the world. This is the very library that Yahoo uses internally for its miriad of products, and so was very likely that it would be highly stable, usable and cross browser compatible. The good news is, it seems that it is. In fact, the user interface team have gone to great pains to tell us exactly how they grade web browsers at Yahoo, and how much support each browser is likely to receive from their libraries. Impressive stuff.

Even so, I didn’t jump on board the moment this User Interface library train pulled into the station. The JavaScript I’m writing just now works quite nicely without using Yahoo’s libraries, and I didn’t really want to feel that I’d become locked in to using them. After all, the fuss and buzz surrounding the release of the libraries might have been just that, so I decided to wait until the fuss about the them had died down and some other people had written some proper feedback about how these libraries actually felt to use.

Then, a couple of days ago, Dustin Diaz wrote about Yahoo’s version of addEvent() . Now, I know Dustin works for Yahoo (actually I didn’t, but it says he does in his colophon - I wonder why he didn’t disclose it in this entry? Anyway, I absolutely believe that Dustin wrote his entry because he wanted to, not because he’d been called upon to do it by any Higher Power), but he is a very talented chap and I trust what he says. Basically, it seems like Yahoo’s addEvent() is the best thing since sliced bread and far better than any of the other versions on the market. The reasons Dustin gives for why it’s simply the best (better than all the rest) include:

1. It’s got Handler Attachment Deferral.

   You can attach an event before the page has finished loading. If the element that you’re trying to attach the element to does not exist yet, then Yahoo’s Event compenent will keep checking for it’s existence every now and then until the window.onload event is fired. Woah - very cool

2. It’s got Automatic Scope Correction.

   With the original addEvent() method Internet Explorer gave you the window obect when you asked for this (instead of giving you the object that caused the event). Not good. Yahoo’s version gives you the object that caused the event, just like a lot of the newer versions of addEvent().

3. It’s got Automatic Event Object Browser Abstraction.

   Another improvement that deals with IE. For callback : function(e) { ... }, e is e is e whatever browser you’re using. So, no more having to do a round trip to window.event with IE.

4. You can send an arbitrary Object to the Event Handler.

   This is very sexy. Makes it easier to pass arbitrary values into an event, which is rather nice.

So, I think that I’m going to have a play with it. I might even use it as the addEvent() method for Standardista Table Sorting, but I’m not sure - is the extra weight of the library going to be worth it? At the moment I’m teetering on the edge, not really sure whether I should use it or not. What do you think?

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