jQuery Forum

Thank you, belated.

I was not notified of your response (email.)

Your answer looks good and I will try it out.

Thanks again.

I found your snippet and tried using it, but I think it's applying the 'singleton' data name to anything that runs it, so if I wanted a couple of widgets to use the singleton pattern I would only be able to create a single of those as the following would all have the 'singleton' data name linked to the object.

However I think I found a way around it, although it isn't completely to my liking, as I would like this function to be used within the widget's '_create' method, making sure nobody without coding knowledge would be the wisest and try to declare extra widgets of the same type, where conflicts might arise by doing so.

So here's what I got so far and a JSBIN:

2. console.log('-----START-----');
3. 
   
4. $.widget('att.att_overlay', {
5. _create: function() {
6.             console.log('made widget');
7. },
8.         test: function(text) {
9.             console.log('Passing stuff into widget -> ' + text);
10.         }
11. });
12. 
    
13. (function($) {
14. $.fn.singleton = function(widgetName) {
15. if ($('body').data(widgetName)) {
16. return $('body').data(widgetName);
17. }
18.         switch(widgetName) {
19.             case ('att_overlay'): $(this).att_overlay(); break;
20.             default: console.log('Widget isn\'t configured to run as a singleton.'); break;
21.         }
22. $('body').data(widgetName, this);
23. return this;
24. };
25. })(jQuery);
26. 
    
27. /* ######## USAGE ######## */
28. var overlay = $('<div></div>').singleton('att_overlay');
29. 
    
30. var foo = $('<div></div>').singleton('att_overlay');
31. 
    
32. //passing stuff into overlay widget
33. overlay.att_overlay('test', 'hello world!');
34. 
    
35. console.log($('body').data());
36. console.log('overlay === foo -> ' + (overlay === foo));

Do you have any tips? Trying to run the 'singleton()' function within the '_create' method of the widget wasn't working and I assume it has to do with the data name already existing, I think it needs to run the singleton function before running the widget instantiation, although I would prefer it the other way round, as I've mentioned.

Thanks in advance,

Fernando Silva