Options processing apotomo-1.0

The dashboard already looks great.

The widgets need customized titles, though. Being all about encapsulation, Apotomo naturally provides a way to pass options into widgets from outside.

   has_widgets do |root|
     root << widget(:twitter)
     root << widget(:trashbin, :title => "Trash tweets here!")
   end

We can provide arbitrary options in the widget method (line 5).

Looking up options

Passing a configuration hash into the widget is a very common task. It’s so common that it is built into the widgets itself.

 class TrashbinWidget < Apotomo::Widget
   responds_to_event :trash
   
   def display
     setup!
     
     render :layout => "portlet"
   end
   
  def trash(evt)
    setup!
    
    Tweet.find(evt[:id]).delete
    trigger :tweetDeleted
    
    update :view => :display
  end
  
private
  def setup!
    @title = options[:title]
  end
end

Widgets can easily access their configuration data using #options (line 21). In states triggered by an event they can use the event object to access request parameters (line 13).

Note that we have to call setup! in the start state as well as in the trigger states, as our widget is stateless.

Using hooks

Fortunately, Apotomo already has a hook for exactly that job.

 class TrashbinWidget < Apotomo::Widget
   responds_to_event :trash
   
   after_initialize :setup!
   
   def display
     render :layout => "portlet"
   end
   
  def trash(evt)
    Tweet.find(evt[:id]).delete
    trigger :tweetDeleted
    
    update :view => :display
  end
  
private
  def setup!
    @title = options[:title]
  end
end

The after_initialize hook (line 4) will execute all attached callbacks after the widget was created. It is somehow comparable to a before_filter in Rails controllers.

Apotomo is a Nick Sutterer product.