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Tutorial 2
In Part 1 of the tutorial, we built a Twitter search application using just the core Enyo 2 library. Since that initial installment first appeared, we've released a set of controls and styles, called "Onyx". In this extension of the tutorial, we'll use Onyx to update our application with a nice look and feel.
Onyx exists outside of the Enyo core, so it has to be loaded with its own
script and link tags. Because Onyx is normally loaded as a library, we'll add
a reference to that library in our package.js file. Our updated version of
package.js looks like this:
enyo.depends(
"$lib/onyx",
"Tweet.js",
"TwitterSearchApp.js"
);
At the moment, Onyx is closely synced with Enyo, so we'll update the links in
the <head> section of app.html to pull in version 2.1 from the Enyo Web
site:
<head>
<title>My Twitter Search</title>
<link rel="stylesheet" href="http://enyojs.com/enyo-2.1/enyo.css">
<script src="http://enyojs.com/enyo-2.1/enyo.js"></script>
<script src="package.js"></script>
</head>
In order for Onyx styles to work correctly, you need to apply the "onyx" class to your application object. You can do this by adding
classes: "onyx"
to your application kind definition, so that TwitterSearchApp.js begins with
the following:
enyo.kind({
name: "TwitterSearchApp",
kind: enyo.Control,
classes: "onyx",
...
});
(Note: If you're already using other classes, just add "onyx" to the end of the list.)
Now, the existing TwitterSearchApp kind has a components block that looks
like this:
components: [
{ tag: "input", name: "searchTerm" },
{ tag: "button", content: "Search", ontap: "search" },
{ tag: "div", name: "tweetList" }
],
The button and input field are raw HTML controls. To convert these to their
Onyx equivalents, replace the tag attributes of the input and button with
the corresponding Onyx kind names:
components: [
{ kind: "onyx.Input", name: "searchTerm" },
{ kind: "onyx.Button", content: "Search", ontap: "search" },
{ tag: "div", name: "tweetList" }
],
At this point, one of the first things we notice is that there's no prompting
to indicate what the search box is for. Since
onyx.Input is derived from
enyo.Input, we can use the placeholder
property to provide text that will be displayed (with grayed-out styling) when
the user hasn't entered anything in the search box:
{ kind: "onyx.Input", name: "searchTerm", placeholder: "Search on Twitter" },
Better still, we can use the placeholder property in conjunction with a styled
search widget (onyx.InputDecorator)
that already exists in the "OnyxSampler" app. We'll borrow that code, while
making a few modifications:
components: [
{kind: "onyx.InputDecorator", components: [
{kind: "onyx.Input", name: "searchTerm",
placeholder: "Search on Twitter", onkeydown: "searchOnEnter"},
{kind: "Image", src: "search-input-search.png", ontap: "search"}
]},
{ tag: "div", name: "tweetList" }
],
...
searchOnEnter: function(inSender, inEvent) {
if (inEvent.keyCode === 13) {
this.search();
return true;
}
},
The InputDecorator kind combines an onyx.Input object with other controls
in a single frame. For the magnifying glass icon (search-input-search.png),
we 'll just make a local copy of the file from "OnyxSampler".
Notice that we've hooked up our search method to respond to both taps on the
icon and presses of the Enter key in the search field. We detect the latter
by intercepting the onkeydown event and looking for a keyCode value equal to
13. If there's a match, we return true to stop the keydown event from going
any further.
The search box looks lonely at the top of the page, so let's give it a border to make it pop. Onyx provides several nice grouping options. In this case, we'll use the onyx.Toolbar kind to highlight the name of the application, while providing a pleasing amount of space between the app name and search box.
Our input controls become components within the onyx.Toolbar control, making
our application kind's components block look like this:
components: [
{kind: "onyx.Toolbar", components: [
{content: "Twitter Search", style: "padding-right: 30px"},
{kind: "onyx.InputDecorator", components: [
{kind: "onyx.Input", name: "searchTerm",
placeholder: "Search on Twitter", onkeydown: "searchOnEnter"},
{kind: "Image", src: "search-input-search.png", ontap: "search"}
]}
]},
{ tag: "div", name: "tweetList" }
],
We've made good progress on our app, but in its current state, it still has one big flaw--if we get more results than will fit on a screen, scrolling down to see more tweets will cause the toolbar to be obscured. We'll fix this by using the layout/fittable library.
To pull the library into our app, we'll add "$lib/layout/fittable" to our
package.js file:
enyo.depends(
"$lib/onyx",
"$lib/layout/fittable",
"Tweet.js",
"TwitterSearchApp.js"
);
(The layout folder is meant to hold a collection of different layout
libraries; the first one that we've published is "fittable".)
The idea behind the fittable layout is that you have a set of rows or columns,
with most of the items having a natural size, but one item expanding to fill the
remaining space. The one that grows is labeled with the attribute fit: true.
To use the fittable layout, we can change the base kind of TwitterSearchApp
from "enyo.Control" to
"enyo.FittableRows"...
enyo.kind({
name: "TwitterSearchApp",
kind: enyo.FittableRows,
classes: "onyx",
...
});
...or we can add the attribute layoutKind: "FittableRowsLayout", while leaving
the base kind as enyo.Control:
enyo.kind({
name: "TwitterSearchApp",
kind: enyo.Control,
layoutKind: "FittableRowsLayout",
classes: "onyx",
...
});
(For Enyo controls, the layoutKind property provides a way to add layout
behavior in a pluggable fashion. Behind the scenes, the
enyo.FittableRowsLayout kind
works by measuring the natural size of all of its child objects, then adjusting
the size of the "fit" object to use up the remaining space.)
Then we'll wrap the tweetList in an
enyo.Scroller and set fit: true on the
scroller to mark it as the layout element that expands:
{ kind: "enyo.Scroller", fit: true, components: [
{ tag: "div", name: "tweetList" }
]}
This will let the user scroll through the full list of tweets using a scrollbar or touch, depending on the device.
In order for the fitting action to work, the enyo.FittableRows control needs
to occupy a set amount of space. This works for applications because when
the control is rendered into the <body> tag, Enyo automatically applies an
enyo-document-fit class to the body and enyo-fit and enyo-stretch
classes to the application div that's inserted into the body. If you're using
the fittable layout for an item inside your application, you'll need to
either define explicit width and height for the control or have it be sized by a
parent fittable control. (A common mistake is to have an enyo.FittableRows
or enyo.FittableColumns control
as a child of your application kind with its fit: true control sized at 0
pixels.)
You can view the updated tutorial application online at http://enyojs.com/tutorial/onyx/search.html. Compare it to the original version and you'll see how good controls and styles can make an app both more functional and more enjoyable to use.
Additional Reading