Evental

Simple, environment-agnostic event handling. Use Evental to create and handle custom events that don't depend on the existence of the DOM or Node and can be used in just about any environment.

Install

npm install evental

Include

// get Evental class
const Evental = require('evental');

In html:

<script type="text/javascript" src="/node_modules/evental/dist/evental.min.js"></script>
<script type="module" src="/node_modules/evental/dist/evental.es.js"></script>

Instantiate:

You can get a new Evental instance in one of two ways:

const evental = new Evental(caller);
// or:
const evental = require('evental').instance;

Properties:

1. instance (static)
   Returns a new instance of the Evental class with no events attached and evental.caller set to the Evental object

2. state
   Returns the current state of events in the form of an object keyed by the event names referencing an object with two properties:

   • handlers: an array of key names representing each callback function to be called when the event fires, or an empty array if none
   • calc: the key representing the calculatable function (see below) attached to the event or null if none

3. events
   Returns an array with the names of all of the currently registered events

Methods:

1. on (eventName, callback, [option], [discardAfterCall])
   Registers an event if it's not already registered and attaches a callback to be called every time the event is fired.
   Returns an automatically generated, unique key that that can be passed to the off method to detach the callback from the event.
   The optional option parameter can modify this method's behavior in several ways (see below).

2. one (eventName, callback, [option])
   Just like on, but callback will be called only once. This can be combined with the first, before, after, and last options by setting the discardAfterCall parameter to true.

3. onCalc (eventName, callback)
   Alias of evental.on(eventName, callback, 'calc') or evental.on(eventName, callback, true) - attaches the callback as the event's calculatable callback and replacing the current one if it exists. Each event can only have one calculatable callback at a time to be called and return a value every time the calc method is called for that event. The value returned by calc can also optionally be passed to the callbacks of the on, first, before, after, and last methods (see Callbacks section below)

4. first(eventName, callback, [discardAfterCall])*
   Alias of evental.on(eventName, callback, 'first') - attaches the associated callback as the first callback to be called when the event is fired. If this is called more than once on the same event, the most recently called will be first, and all preceding first event handlers will be converted to before.

5. before (eventName, callback, [discardAfterCall])
   Alias of evental.on(eventName, callback, 'before') - callbacks classified with this flag will be called before all callbacks except for the current first callback, assuming one exists, when an event is fired.

6. after (eventName, callback, [discardAfterCall])
   Alias of evental.on(eventName, callback, 'after') - callbacks classified with this flag will be called after all callbacks except for the current last callback, assuming one exists, when an event is fired.

7. last (eventName, callback, [discardAfterCall])
   Alias of evental.on(eventName, callback, 'last') - attaches the associated callback as the last callback to be called when the event is fired. If this is called more than once on the same event, the most recently called will be last, and all preceding last event handlers will be converted to after.

8. off (eventName, key)
   Detaches the callback that the key represents from the event if it exists

9. fire (eventName, [...args])
   Activates the event, calling all handlers attached to it in the order they were attached, with this referring to the evental instance and passing all of the args to each callback. Returns the evental instance.

10. calc (eventName, [...args])
    Activates the calculatable event, calling the calculatable function attached to the event if it exists, with this referring to the evental instance and passing all of the arguments to the callback. Returns the return value of the callback.

Both fire and calc can be called multiple times.

1. get (eventName)
   Returns the individual EventalEvent instance for the named event if it exists.

2. count (eventName)
   Returns the current number of times the event has been fired or calculated.

3. getEvent (eventName, [key])
   If key is given, returns the specific callback function the key represents, otherwise returns all functions attached to the event

4. getCalc (eventName)
   Returns the calculatable function attached to the event or null if none exists

5. setCaller (caller)
   Sets the this value of all event callbacks to the object represented by caller.

6. bypass (eventName)
   For events where there is a calculatable callback set, you can call this function to prevent the calculated value being passed to the event stack when the named event is fired. Calling bypass will guarantee that the arguments passed to the fire method will always be the arguments passed to the callbacks in the event stack. You can disable bypass at any time by calling evental.removeBypass(eventName).

Callbacks

The second parameter of the on, onCalc, first, before, after, and last methods is always the callback, much as it is in other event handlers. In the callback, this defaults to the Evental instance, but you can change that by passing a different caller into the Evental constructor, or at any time by setting the value of evental.caller.
Pass parameters into the evental.fire method that will then be available in every callback for the event, with one exception: If the event has an active calculatable callback (called using evental.onCalc or by calling evental.on with the third parameter set to calc or true), evental.calc will silently be called before cycling through the event stack, then the returned value of calc will be passed to the callbacks rather than the arguments passed in the fire method. If you want to use calc on an event for other reasons and don't want the returned value passed to the event stack, you can bypass this default behavior by calling eventalevent.bypass(eventName).

Examples:

Bind an existing event:

document.addEventListener('click', e => {
   evental.fire('click', e); 
});
 
document.getElementById('myButton').addEventListener('click', e => {
   evental.fire('myButtonClick', e); 
});

Conditionally fire several events at once:

function onComplete(request) {
    if (request.status == 'success') {
        evental.fire(['success', 'complete'], request.data);
    } else {
        evental.fire(['error', 'complete'], request.error);
    }
}

Control the order in which events are called:

let order = [];
evental.after('order', () => {
   order.push(4);
});
 
evental.on('order', () => {
    order.push(3);
});
 
evental.last('order', () => {
    order.push(5);
});
 
evental.first('order', () => {
    order.push(1); 
});
 
evental.before('order', () => {
    order.push(2); 
});
 
evental.fire('order');
 
// Result: order == [1,2,3,4,5];

Mutate data before passing to the next step:

evental.onCalc('chunkReady', (data, number) => {
   console.log(`Data Chunk ${number}: ${JSON.stringify(data)}`); 
});
let chunkNumber = 0;
stream.on('data', data => {
    chunkNumber++;
    data = evental.calc('chunkReady', data, chunkNumber);
    return data;
}

Use the one method to set a callback to run once, then reactivate the callback later

let signedIn = evental.one('activity', () => {
   alert('User is signed in.');
});
// Do stuff
 
evental.fire('activity'); // alert('User is signed in.')
evental.on('signOut', () => {
   evental.one('activity', signedIn); 
});
 
evental.fire('activity'); // no alert
evental.fire('signOut');
// Do stuff
evental.fire('activity'); // alert('User is signed in.')