lacey v1.0.0

Lacey

Lacey is a (really) small javascript library for module oriented development.

Table of contents

• Quick start
• How to use
  • Project Structure
  • Creating the app
  • Registering modules
  • Instantiating a module

Quick start

There is many different options you can use to install the library to your project.

Install with npm

npm install lacey --save

Install with Bower

bower install lacey --save

Once installed, add a script tag to your html header pointing to lacey/dist/lacey.js.
You can also use the minified version: lacey/dist/lacey.min.js

Install with Ruby

The official lacey gem is lacey-rails.
lacey-rails is a gemified version of the library that act as a wrapper for an easier integration with the rails asset pipeline.

Add this line to your application's Gemfile:

gem 'lacey-rails', '~> 1.0.0'

And then execute:

bundle install

Or install it yourself:

gem install lacey-rails

Add the following directive to your Javascript manifest file (application.js):

//= require lacey

The lacey-rails gem provides no minified version of the library and lets the asset pipeline take care of the job.

How to use

Once the library is installed, you are now ready to create a lacey app:

Project Structure

A lacey project is structured as follows:

javascripts/
├── modules/
│   ├── a_module.js
│   ├── another_module.js
├── app.js

*The project structure proposed is not required, only recommended.

Creating the app

You can now create your app.js file.
This file contains :

window.app = new LaceyApp('name_of_your_app'); // choose a pertinent name for your app

Your app serves the purpose of registering modules. It acts as the glue that binds you modules together.

The available methods are:

app.name; // returns the name of the app (ex: 'name_of_your_app')

app.modules; // returns an array of registered modules

app.register_module(...); // registers a module

app.unregister_module(...); // unregisters a module

Registering modules

Modules contains code for a component of your app. The idea is to scope all of the functions and variables pertaining to a certain functionality. Inside a module, you are now able to define public and private variable.

A module is registered like this:

app.register_module('Filters', function(){
    this.name_filter = 'alex';
    this.age_filter = 29;
    
    this.hello = function(){
        alert(greetings);
    };
    
    var greetings = 'hello ! My name is ' + this.name_filter + '.';
});

*It is recommended to CamelCase module names as you would for any class name.

A module called Filters has been created.
The Filters module contains three public properties (name_filter, age_filter and hello). Those properties are accessible from an instance of your module. Filters also contains a private variable (greetings) that is only accessible inside the module.

Instantiating a module

The app now contains an instance of the module:

var filters = app.get_instance('Filters');

Every module is a singleton.