hazeline
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2.0.1 • Public • Published

Hazeline, the definitive tutorial library.

A simple, fully customizable, framework agnostic tutorial library for any web application.

Made with ❤️ in TypeScript, and works like a charm with vanilla JavaScript.

Oh yeah! Before you ask:
It works great with Angular!


License: MIT

Hazeline GIF demo

Install

npm install --save hazeline

Include the Theter min file provided with Hazeline:

Due to a problem with the --prod build in Angular, caused by the Tether package installed via NPM, we had to remove Tether from our package.json and unfortunately, we need that you include the Tether package in your application.

But don't worry, we've got you covered here, by providing a Thether .min.js file that you can find inside hazeline/dist/tether.min.js


From node_modules in html file:

<html>
    <head>
        <script src="~/node_modules/hazeline/dist/tether.min.js"></script> 
    </head>
</html>

From CDN in html file:

<html>
    <head>
        <script src="//cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/tether/1.4.4/js/tether.min.js"></script> 
    </head>
</html>

Angular way:

Include the Theter min file provided with Hazeline via angular.json:

"scripts"[
    ...
    "node_modules/hazeline/dist/tether.min.js"
    ...
]

Usage

Hazeline is extremely configurable, but is also designed to work out of the box, providing its own graphical style.

If you don't want to customize any option and just run it, these are the only lines you need:

 
import {Hazeline} from 'hazeline';
 
const haze = new Hazeline();
haze.addSection({
    id: 'test',
    steps: [
        {
            elementSelector: '#input-1',
            text: 'This is an awesome input box'
        },
        {
            elementSelector: '#input-2',
            text: 'This is another awesome input box'
        }
    ]
});
 
haze.runTutorial('test');

The above code, will create a tutorial section that contains two steps.

Since your application could have multiple sections, your tutorial should too. A section, for Hazeline is a "container" of steps. These steps will be used to guide the user through the application once the tutorial is ran.

The only property required for the section beside the steps, is the id. Is a simple string property, and you can name it whatever you want. You will use this id later to start that section.

Next, we define the steps. Each step requires a elementSelector and a text properties.

The elementSelector property is a jQuery style selector for any element that exists on the page. Although we are using a jQuery style selector, Hazeline does not depend on jQuery.

The text propery is the actual text that will be rendered inside the lightbox that will be attached to the highlighted element. The text property can also be raw HTML since it is passed to the innerHTML property of the lightbox element.

Finally we call hazeline.runTutorial('test');. As you can see, we use the previously defined section id to start that section when starting the tutorial. That's it.

Customization

Hazeline provides two types of customization:

One designed to be set once, and never think about it again. This, in Hazeline is called globalOptions, and can be defined at a section level. These options you will pass, will override the default options, and will be used for all the steps.

One designed to be more dynamic, it uses the same exact structure as the global one, but can be set at a step level, and is called dynamicOptions. These options will work only for that step.

With the combination of these two kind of customizations, you can define default options for the whole section, and in case you need more specificity or something different for a particular step, you can set it.

For more detailed information on how deep you can go with the customization see customization details.

Example of global customization

haze.addSection({
    id: 'test',
    steps: [
        {
            elementSelector: '#input-1',
            text: 'This is an awesome input box'
        },
        {
            elementSelector: '#input-2',
            text: 'This is another awesome input box'
        }
    ],
    globalOptions: {
        overlay: {
            closeBtnText: 'Quit',
            overlayCSS: {
                background: 'rgba(255, 255, 255, .85)'
            }
        },
        lightbox: {
            nextBtnText: '>',
            prevBtnText: '<',
            lightboxNextBtnCSS: {
                border: 'none'
            },
            lightboxPrevBtnCSS: {
                border: 'none'
            },
            lightboxWrapperCSS: {
                boxShadow: '0px 3px 12px -5px #333'
            }
        }
    }
});

Example of dynamic customization

The same logic applies for the steps, same options available:

haze.addSection({
    id: 'test',
    steps: [
        {
            elementSelector: '#input-1',
            text: 'This is an awesome input box',
            dynamicOptions: {
                overlay: {
                    closeBtnText: 'Quit',
                    overlayCSS: {
                        background: 'rgba(255, 255, 255, .85)'
                    }
                },
                lightbox: {
                    nextBtnText: '>',
                    prevBtnText: '<',
                    lightboxNextBtnCSS: {
                        border: 'none'
                    },
                    lightboxPrevBtnCSS: {
                        border: 'none'
                    },
                    lightboxWrapperCSS: {
                        boxShadow: '0px 3px 12px -5px #333'
                    }
                }
            }
        },
    ],
});

As you can see I just moved the options from the global place to the dynamic place on the first step. The result is the same as above, since we have only one step.

Textual Overlay Mode

By default Hazeline uses a lightbox to describe an element that is highlighted. This means that the concerned element has some meaning to the user, or you just want to describe it and introduce its functions.

But what if you don't have a specific element to highlight or describe? Let's say that you just want to give a brief description about the whole section, or greet the user with a message, and then start the actual tutorial. But a lightbox and a hightlighted element in that scenario wouldn't be the best choice.

Instead, you could use the Textual Overlay. When defining the step required options (text, and elementSelector) you can optionally activate the useOverlayInsteadOfLightbox property. For this step, the lightbox won't appear, and no particular element will be highlighted, even though you've specified the element selector.

As the lightbox, and all the other Hazeline's components, even this one is designed to work out of the box, but still you can customize it like the others. For more detailed information about the Textual Overlay see its specific configuration

Delaying the start of a specific step

It might happen that you have something asyncronus running that must be completed before the next step can begin. This might be a navigation to another page, on wich the element that the step about to start uses is present.

In these kind of situations the section step offers another type of configuration called delayBeforeStart. It is a number, and can set the milliseconds to wait before the step actually begin.

Note: When you use the delayBeforeStart there are a few things to keep in mind:

1) The majority of the CSS customization is done internally and based on your global or dynamic configuration for the normal overlay

2) When activating the delayBeforeStart you must specify the delayText, which will be the text that will appear in the middle of the overlay. This text can be a simple 'Please wait...'. It also accepts HTML. Note that if you don't specify this information, the overlay will result empty and the tutorial might look like stuck to the user.

3) Lastly, when activating the delayBeforeStart, you also must provide a text color for the overlay text. Since the normal overlay that wraps around the highlighted element doesn't contain any text, there's nothig that ensures that the property isn't undefined.

Offsetting the highlighted element wrapping

Hazeline by default applies a 10px offset around the element that it wraps. And it offsets the vertical alignment of the lightbox by -10px too. If you'd like to change this behaviour, you can override these offsets. On the globalOptions.overlay as well as the dynamicOptions.overlay you will find these properties:

  • topSideWrapOffset
  • leftSideWrapOffset
  • rightSideWrapOffset
  • bottomSideWrapOffset

They respectively apply offsets on the top, left, right and bottom wrappers. You can valorize them all, or just the ones you need to.

Note: that when changing the lightbox placement, you will also have to modify its offset. Since Hazeline by default places the lightbox under the element and uses by defauly -10px of offset, if you don't change that value in 10px or accordingly with your wrappers offsets, the lightbox may overlap by 10px your hightlighted element when positioned on top of it.

No offsets example

Hazeline input box wrapped with no offset

Default offset example (10px)

Hazeline input box wrapped with default offset

Custom offset example (20px)

Hazeline input box wrapped with custom offset

Hazeline callbacks to events

Hazeline allows you to specify two different callbacks for two types of events. This logic applies both to the sections and to the steps:

  • onBeforeEnd
  • onBeforeStart

onBeforeStart

This callback will be executed right before the startup of the tutorial in case it's set at a Section level. If it's specified at a Step level, it will be executed right before the step startup.

This callback will be converted into an Observable, and from it will start the pipeline of events inside Hazeline. If you don't specify a onBeforeStart a Promise that resolves immediatly will be used.

Note: this is the first step of the pipeline, and if something asyncronus will be executed inside, the tutorial or the step won't start until the promise resolves, try to not clutter this too much as it may result is bad user experience.

onBeforeEnd

This callback will be executed right before the tutorial definitive shutdown, or before the next step loading.

This callback will be converted into an Observable, and it will be called right before the last event in the pipeline, the definitive shutdown of the tutorial in case it's placed at a Section level, or the loading of the next step in case it's placed at a Step level. If you don't specify a onBeforeEnd a Promise that resolves immediatly will be used.

Note: this is the step before the last one in the pipeline, both for the Sections and the Steps pipelines, and if something asyncronus will be executed inside, the tutorial won't quit or the next step won't load until the promise resolves, but the quit button will be removed. Try to not clutter this too much as it may result is bad user experience.

Also remember to always resolve your promises.

Attaching custom event listeners for next step triggering

By default, Hazeline, has three ways of triggering the next step call. One made through the lightbox next button, one when in textual overlay mode, by clicking anywhere around the overlay. The last one, always when in textual overlay mode, by clicking on the overlay's next button (if present).

But what if you'd like to trigger the next step when a certain event occours on the element highlighted?

You can use the nextStepCustomTrigger property, present on the Step options. When you enable this feature, two more properties are required, and optionally a third one can be specified:

event:

The event you want to listen for. It can be any valid JS events, like: click, blur, dbclick, mouseenter, mouseleave, keyup etc

callback:

The actual callback that will be ran when that event occurs. This callback is a function that returns a Promise. If the promise is resolved, the next step will be triggered, if the promise rejects or does not resolve, nothing will happen.

When the callback is executed, three arguments will be passed to it:

  • evt: the actual Event fired (in case of keyup is useful to know which key was pressed)
  • step: the object of the current step in the tutorial. HazelineTutorialStep
  • el: the HTML object of the element that is currently being highlighted

disableDefaultNextPrevBtns:

The third, optional property. If set to true it will remove the Next and Previous buttons from the lightbox for this step.

Note: always remember to resolve your promises at some point. If you don't resolve the promise, the next event won't be triggered.

Implementation example of nextStepCustomTrigger:

{
    elementSelector'#inputZip',
    text'Third',
    nextStepCustomTrigger{
        event'keyup',
        disableDefaultNextPrevBtnstrue,
        callback: (evt: Event, step: HazelineTutorialStep, el: HTMLElement) => new Promise((res, rej) => {
            //  If the key pressed is ENTER
            if ((evt as KeyboardEvent).keyCode === 13) {
                res();
                return;
            }
 
            rej();
        })
    }
},

A note about performances

Although I've tryied my best to keep Hazeline as efficient as possible, note that a heavy usage of events listeneres, and observables is going on under the hood. Of course all the events listeners are detached at the end of the tutorial, and all the observables are closed or unsubscribed too.

All the tests that I've done so far, didn't seem to go "slow", "laggish" or with poor performances. But still, be aware of this.

The only time you may see some glitching going around is when going crazy with scrolling, resizing of the window.

Or when you are heavily debbugging with the DevTools opened in Chrome. But when the DevTools are closed everything will run smooth.

A note about compatibility

Even though I've done my best to keep compatibility across browsers, there's one property used inside Hazeline that will sure break IE (guess who 😤).

The incriminated property is ParentNode.prepend(...nodesToPrepend);

If you still need to support IE (who uses it still? 😓) you can integrate this polyfill (coming from the official MDN documentation):

// Source: https://github.com/jserz/js_piece/blob/master/DOM/ParentNode/prepend()/prepend().md
(function (arr) {
  arr.forEach(function (item) {
    if (item.hasOwnProperty('prepend')) {
      return;
    }
    Object.defineProperty(item, 'prepend', {
      configurable: true,
      enumerable: true,
      writable: true,
      value: function prepend() {
        var argArr = Array.prototype.slice.call(arguments),
          docFrag = document.createDocumentFragment();
        
        argArr.forEach(function (argItem) {
          var isNode = argItem instanceof Node;
          docFrag.appendChild(isNode ? argItem : document.createTextNode(String(argItem)));
        });
        
        this.insertBefore(docFrag, this.firstChild);
      }
    });
  });
})([Element.prototype, Document.prototype, DocumentFragment.prototype]);

Other than that it should work in any other browser. I've tested it on Chrome, Firefox, and Safari. Unfortunately I couldn't test it on Edge or IE since I'm working on Mac.

But if some brave heart reading this, would like to do it, I'd really appreciate it ❤️

A note about responsiveness

Hazeline has in mind responsiveness. There's one problem though, the lightbox. Since the size of the screen might change at runtime, sometimes the lightbox might be placed half outside of the screen.

But I left Hazeline fully customizable for this. I kept this principle in mind, and that's why you also have the onBeforeStart and onBeforeEnd callbacks both on the Sections and the Steps.

Since any type of customization is done after the execution of onBeforeStart, you can dinamically detect your screen size, and change the actual options for the running step accordingly, and then after the callback execution the new options will be used.

Quick example:

const hazelineSection = 
 
...
 
{
    elementSelector'#inputZip',
    text'Third',
    dynamicOptions{
        lightbox{
            positioning{
                attachment'left top',
                targetAttachment'bottom left',
            }
        }
    },
    onBeforeStart: () => new Promise((res, rej) => {
        const stepIndex = hazelineSection.steps.findIndex(step => step.elementSelector === '#inputZip');
        //  This will force Hazeline to ignore the previous configuration 
        //  and use the textual overlay instead
        hazelineSection.steps[stepIndex].useOverlayInsteadOfLightbox = true;
        res();
    })
}
 
...
 
haze.addSection(hazelineSection);
haze.runTutorial(hazelineSection.id);

Hazeline section step specific properties


These are the HazelineTutorialStep specific properties:

Property name Description Accepted values
text The text for this specific step. It will appear in the lightbox or textual wrapper string
delayBeforeStart If set it will delay the rendering of the step according to the milliseconds set. number
delayText If delayBeforeStart is set, this is required. It will be the text that will be shown to the user while waiting for the delay to end. string
delayTextColor The color for the delayText. string
dynamicOptions Dynamic options for this step. Will override the global options for this step. HazelineOptions
useOverlayInsteadOfLightbox If set to true no lightbox will be used for this step, and no element will be highligted. Instead an overlay will appear and it will contain the text of the lightbox. boolean
onBeforeEnd A function that returns a Promise. When the promise resolves the next step will be loaded. () => Promise<boolean>
onBeforeStart A function that returns a Promise. When the promise resolves the step starts. () => Promise<boolean>

Hazeline section/step dynamic properties


Overlay

The overlay option, allows you to customize the overlay that surrounds the highlighted element.

Property name Description Accepted values
closeBtnText The text inside the button to end the tutorial string
overlayCSS The CSS for the overlay HazelineCSSRules
endTutorialBtnCSS The CSS for the end tutorial btn HazelineCSSRules
endTutorialBtnHoverCSS The CSS for the end tutorial btn when in hover mode HazelineCSSRules
topSideWrapOffset The amount of the top offset to apply on the wrapper that wraps the element number
leftSideWrapOffset The amount of the left offset to apply on the wrapper that wraps the element number
rightSideWrapOffset The amount of the right offset to apply on the wrapper that wraps the element number
bottomSideWrapOffset The amount of the bottom offset to apply on the wrapper that wraps the element number

Lightbox

The lightbox option, allows you to customize the box that is placed near the highlighted element, containing the Next and Previous buttons and the text for the section step.

General Properties:

Property name Description Accepted values
nextBtnText The text for the next button string
prevBtnText The text for the previous button string
lastStepNextBtnText When reaching the last step, you can specify a different text for the next button. string
lightboxWrapperCSS The CSS for the main lightbox wrapper HazelineCSSRules
lightboxNextBtnCSS The CSS for the next btn HazelineCSSRules
lightboxPrevBtnCSS The CSS for the previous btn HazelineCSSRules
lightboxTextWrapperCSS The CSS for the text wrapper. The wrapper that contains the text for the step HazelineCSSRules
lightboxControlsWrapperCSS The CSS for the buttons wrapper. The wrapper that contains the next and previous buttons HazelineCSSRules
lightboxPrevBtnHoverCSS The CSS for the previous button when in hover mode HazelineCSSRules
lightboxNextBtnHoverCSS The CSS for the next button when in hover mode HazelineCSSRules

Positioning Properties:

Property name Description Accepted values
positioning.offset The offset for the lightbox from the highlighted element. For more information, see Tether offset string
positioning.attachment The attachment point for the lightbox. For more information, see Tether attachment string
positioning.targetOffset For more information, see Tether offset string
positioning.targetAttachment The attachment point for the highlighted element. For more information, see Tether attachment string
positioning.constraints The constraints for the lightbox and the highlighted element. For more information, see Tether constraints string
positioning.classes Additional classes you'd like to add. For more information, see Tether classes string

Textual Overlay

The textual overlay is the overlay that appears instead of the lightbox when you set useOverlayInsteadOfLightbox on the section step.

Property name Description Accepted values
hideButtons Wheter to show or not the next/previous buttons.
Note: if you hide the buttons, the clickAnywhereForNextStep is automatically activated, and there will be no way to go back to the previous step from there
boolean
disableBgFadeIn By default, the bg of the textual overlay fades in and out when appearing and disappearing. You can disable this behaviour boolean
disableTextFadeIn By default, the text of the textual overlay paragraph fades in and out when appearing and disappearing. You can disable this behaviour boolean
clickAnywhereForNextStep You can enable the next step triggering by clicking anywhere on the textual overlay boolean
bgFadeInTimeInMs The time that the fade transition will take to complete on the overlay.
Note: the ease-in-out method is used for easing
number
textFadeInTimeInMs The time that the fade transition will take to complete on the paragraph.
Note: the ease-in-out method is used for easing
number
overlayBgFadeInOpacity The final opacity to set on the overlay. number
overlayParagraphFadeInOpacity The final opacity to set on the paragraph. number
overlayCSS The CSS for the textual overlay HazelineCSSRules
paragraphCSS The CSS for the textual overlay paragraph HazelineCSSRules
prevNextButtonsCSS Common styling for the previous and next buttons of the textual overlay HazelineCSSRules
prevNextButtonsHoverCSS Common styling for the previous and next buttons of the textual overlay when in hover mode HazelineCSSRules

Hazeline methods

addSection

Adds a section to the sections available. Optionally can clear the previous sections when adding a new one.

Arguments:

Argument #01 section
Required yes
Type HazelineTutorialSection

Argument #02 clearPreviousSections
Required no
Default value false
Type boolean

Returns: void

clearSections

Clears all the tutorial sections

Takes no arguments

Returns: void

runTutorial

Runs a specific tutorial section, given the section id. It returns an Observable containing the Tutorial Status.

Arguments:

Argument #01 sectionId
Required yes
Type string

Returns: Observable<HazelineTutorialStatus>

Hazeline interfaces and enums

HazelineTutorialStatus

Type: Interface

interface HazelineTutorialStatus {
    status: HazelineTutorialStatuses;
    runningSection: HazelineTutorialSection;
    runningStepInSection: HazelineTutorialStep;
}

HazelineTutorialStatuses

Type: Enum

enum HazelineTutorialStatuses {
    started,
    stopped,
    errored
}

HazelineTutorialSection

Type: Interface

interface HazelineTutorialSection {
    id: string;
    steps: HazelineTutorialStep[];
 
    globalOptions?: HazelineOptions;
 
    onBeforeEnd?: () => Promise<boolean>;
    onBeforeStart?: () => Promise<boolean>;
}

HazelineOptions

Type: Interface

interface HazelineOptions {
    overlay?: HazelineOverlayOptions;
    lightbox?: HazelineLightboxOptions;
    textualOverlay?: HazelineTextualOverlayOptions;
}

HazelineOverlayOptions

Type: Interface

interface HazelineOverlayOptions {
    closeBtnText?: string;
 
    topSideWrapOffset?: number;
    leftSideWrapOffset?: number;
    rightSideWrapOffset?: number;
    bottomSideWrapOffset?: number;
 
    overlayCSS?: HazelineCSSRules;
    endTutorialBtnCSS?: HazelineCSSRules;
    endTutorialBtnHoverCSS?: HazelineCSSRules;
}

HazelineLightboxOptions

Type: Interface

interface HazelineLightboxOptions {
    nextBtnText?: string;
    prevBtnText?: string;
    lastStepNextBtnText?: string;
    lightboxWrapperCSS?: HazelineCSSRules;
    lightboxNextBtnCSS?: HazelineCSSRules;
    lightboxPrevBtnCSS?: HazelineCSSRules;
    lightboxTextWrapperCSS?: HazelineCSSRules;
    lightboxControlsWrapperCSS?: HazelineCSSRules;
 
    lightboxPrevBtnHoverCSS?: HazelineCSSRules;
    lightboxNextBtnHoverCSS?: HazelineCSSRules;
 
    positioning?: {
        offset?: string;
        attachment?: string;
        classPrefix?: string;
        targetOffset?: string;
        targetAttachment?: string;
        constraints?: ITetherConstraint[];
        classes?: { [className: string]: boolean | string };
    };
}

HazelineTextualOverlayOptions

Type: Interface

interface HazelineTextualOverlayOptions {
    hideButtons?: boolean;
    disableBgFadeIn?: boolean;
    disableTextFadeIn?: boolean;
    clickAnywhereForNextStep?: boolean;
 
    bgFadeInTimeInMs?: number;
    textFadeInTimeInMs?: number;
 
    overlayBgFadeInOpacity?: number;
    overlayParagraphFadeInOpacity?: number;
 
    overlayCSS?: HazelineCSSRules;
    paragraphCSS?: HazelineCSSRules;
    prevNextButtonsCSS?: HazelineCSSRules;
    prevNextButtonsHoverCSS?: HazelineCSSRules;
}

HazelineTutorialStep

Type: Interface

interface HazelineTutorialStep {
    text: string;
    elementSelector: string;
    
    delayText?: string;
    delayTextColor?: string;
    delayBeforeStart?: number;
 
    dynamicOptions?: HazelineOptions;
    useOverlayInsteadOfLightbox?: boolean;
 
    nextStepCustomTrigger?: {
        event: string;
        disableDefaultNextPrevBtns?: boolean;
        callback: (evt: Event, step: HazelineTutorialStep, htmlElement: HTMLElement) => Promise<void>,
    };
 
    onBeforeEnd?: () => Promise<boolean>;
    onBeforeStart?: () => Promise<boolean>;
}

Conclusions

I really hope that you will enjoy using Hazeline as much as I enjoyed developing it, and publishing it, making it available to you too.

So if you used it in a project hit me up with a star! I'd really love to see how much impact this library does.

Thank you ❤️
Caius


Built With

  • Rxjs - Reactive extensions library for javascript
  • Tether - A client-side library to make absolutely positioned elements attach to elements in the page efficiently.
  • TypeScript - TypeScript is a superset of JavaScript that compiles to clean JavaScript output.
  • Love and passion. For coding, and beautiful code

Help Hazeline grow

If you like this project please help me with your feedback, leave a star :) Found a bug? Want a feature? Want some help? Feel free to open a Issue on GitHub.

Versioning

We use SemVer for versioning.

Authors

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License.

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