Table of Contents

• Air
  • Install
  • Design
  • Usage
  • API
    • Core
      • air(selector, [context])
      • air.Air
      • new Air(selector, [context])
        • .dom
        • .length
        • get([index])
        • each(iterator)
        • air(selector, [context])
        • plugin(list)
  • Plugin Guide
  • Plugins
    • append
    • attr
    • children
  • Plugin Groups
    • Attributes
  • Compatibility
    • Array Access
    • HTML Parsing
    • AJAX
    • Element Data
    • XML
    • Selector Extensions
    • Redundancy
    • Dimension
  • Developer
    • Test
    • Cover
    • Lint
    • Clean
    • Dist
    • Spec
    • Instrument
    • Readme
  • Roadmap
  • License

Air

.

Lightweight, modular DOM library.

Browser targets are relatively modern browsers from IE9+, Chrome, Firefox, Safari and modern versions of Opera (post blink integration).

This library is not designed to be a drop-in replacement for jquery, it is designed to provide a modular library that is jqueryesque therefore it is best suited to new projects.

Work in progress: not yet ready for production.

Install

npm i air --save

Design

Whilst the API is similar to jquery some notable design decisions:

• Plugin architecture.
• No global variables.
• Stay focused, see compatibility.

To get a feel for how lightweight air is see air.js, the core of the system is less than 100 lines of code (with comments). All other files in lib are plugins that should be loaded depending upon your application requirements.

Usage

Designed to work with browserify by default, assuming you have configured the browserify paths option correctly for node_modules/air/lib:

var $ = require('air');
$.plugin([
  require('air/event')
])

Note that the plugins are namespaced to prevent potential collisions when an application is using multiple plugin-enabled components.

API

The main function air wraps a set of elements in a class that may be decorated by plugins.

Core

Core functionality is the main method, the class function and the pre-defined properties and methods on the class, see air.js.

air(selector, [context])

Returns an Air instance.

air.Air

Reference to the Air constructor.

new Air(selector, [context])

Class constructor.

Accepts a selector String, Element, NodeList, Air instance or array of elements.

The context argument is only applicable when a selector String argument is used and should reference the parent Element context for querySelectorAll.

When an existing Air instance is passed the underlying array is copied but the elements are not cloned.

var $ = require('air');
$('body');                                  // String (selector)
$(document.querySelector('body'));          // Element
$(document.getElementById('id'));           // Element
$(document.querySelectorAll('div'));        // NodeList
$([document.getElementById('id')]);         // Array
$($('body'));                               // Air

.dom

The underlying array of elements.

.length

The number of encapsulated elements.

get([index])

Get the element at the specified index, if no arguments are passed the dom array is returned.

each(iterator)

Iterate the underlying elements, alias for dom.forEach.

air(selector, [context])

Alias to the main air function, allows instance methods to wrap elements using this.air().

plugin(list)

Alias to the plugin function, allows instance methods to load plugins via this.plugin().

Plugin Guide

Plugin functionality is provided by zephyr see the zephyr plugins documentation.

Plugins

Default plugins that may be loaded on demand, syntax examples assume that air has been aliased to $.

Everything except the core methods are implemented as plugins so there are many examples in lib.

append

Insert content, specified by the parameter, to the end of each element in the set of matched elements.

$(selector, [context]).append(content);

• File: append.js.
• Dependencies: none.

attr

Get the value of an attribute for the first element in the set of matched elements or set one or more attributes for every matched element.

$(selector, [context]).attr(name);
$(selector, [context]).attr(name, value);
$(selector, [context]).attr(attributes);

• File: attr.js.
• Dependencies: none.

children

Get the children of each element in the set of matched elements.

$(selector, [context]).children();

• File: children.js.
• Dependencies: none.

Plugin Groups

Plugin groups provide a convenient way to load related plugins.

Attributes

Element attribute plugins.

• File: attributes.js.
• Plugins: attr, class, data.

Compatibility

Some features available in jquery that there are no plans to implement.

Array Access

Accessing the underlying DOM elements using array bracket notation [] is not available, if you wish to access the encapsulated elements use the core methods.

HTML Parsing

Whilst jquery allows HTML parsing (eg: $('<p></p>')) this library does not support it and there are no plans to implement this functionality, the rationale is:

• Confuses the semantics of $.
• You can create elements easily by chaining function calls.
• For complex requirements a template library is a better option.
• Implementing complex expressions to prevent xss attacks is not a good idea, best to avoid potentially tainted input wherever possible.

Note that recent jquery versions now recommend $.parseHTML rather than passing markup to $.

AJAX

This is deemed to be irrelevant to DOM manipulation and is best left to one of the many capable libraries available.

Element Data

The data plugin allows manipulating the data- attributes of an element but does not store any data on the element itself. If you wish to maintain data as part of your application it would be best resolved using another pattern (eg: storage).

If you really need to assign arbitrary data to an element you can always do so by directly setting properties on the element.

XML

Designed to work with HTML documents the behaviour when modifying XML documents is undefined.

Selector Extensions

The jquery library extends CSS selectors with pseudo-selectors such as :checked, we believe this is unnecessary as all selector extension functionality can be achieved using other means.

Redundancy

We aim to provide a single way to perform a task, the jquery library often provides multiple ways to achieve the same thing, for example:

• $.get() and $.toArray().
• $.append() and $.appendTo().
• $.prepend() and $.prependTo().

The air library will usually prefer the shorter and most common variant and not supply the alternatives; using the above examples the equivalent functions are $.get(), $.append() and $.prepend().

Dimension

Whilst the jquery dimension methods (width(), innerWidth() etc.) allow setting element dimensions we prefer (for the sake of simplicity) to make these read-only as you can already set element dimensions using the css plugin. It is possible that this may change in the future.

Developer

Developer workflow is via gulp but should be executed as npm scripts to enable shell execution where necessary.

Test

Run the headless test suite using phantomjs:

npm test

To run the tests in a browser context open test/index.html.

Cover

Run the test suite and generate code coverage:

npm run cover

Lint

Run the source tree through jshint and jscs:

npm run lint

Clean

Remove generated files:

npm run clean

Dist

Create distribution builds in dist:

npm run dist

Spec

Compile the test specifications:

npm run spec

Instrument

Generate instrumented code from lib in instrument:

npm run instrument

Readme

Generate the project readme file (requires mdp):

npm run readme

Roadmap

1. Get the core plugins stable and well tested with comprehensive code coverage.
2. Build a command line interface to generate custom plugin builds for various module standards including umd, requirejs and systemjs.

License

Everything is MIT. Read the license if you feel inclined.

Generated by mdp(1).