README.md

My 'perfect' jQuery Plugin Boilerplate

I'll use this boilerplate to fast and easy kick-start new plugins for jQuery. This is the 'perfect' solution for my personal needs. :)

How to Start

Grab your copy of the normal or extended boilerplate and change the pluginName. You're ready to go, only implement whatever your plugin should do or extend own functions.

Chainable and Instance Related

The plugin is available over jQuery and chainable by default:

jQuery(".selector").PerfectBoilerplate({configuration: "goes here"}).chainableFunction();

The plugin create an own instance for every call. Use this in an object oriented manner to access internal functions like destroy or own implementations:

var pluginInstance = jQuery(".selector").PerfectBoilerplate({chainable: false});
pluginInstance.destroy();

Extended Boilerplate

There is a normal and a extended version of this boilerplate. The extended version has support for some more features I'll need very often. Just remove parts you don't need in your project or use the normal boilerplate.

Extended: Callbacks

I like to have one central functions in my plugins to trigger a callback function. You can use the internal function _triggerCallback to execute e.g. a configurable callback function and pass an optional element to it:

this._triggerCallback(this.configuration.sampleCallback, $(element));

Extended: Throttle

The _throttle function helps to limit executions of a function. Just specify a function to execute and a time delay the function should be executed once in a time. You will receive a new function you can pass to heavily executed events like scroll or resize:

var throttledFunction = this._throttle(250, function() {
	// will be executed once every 250 milliseconds
});

jQuery(window).on("scroll", throttledFunction);

Extended: Queueing

The build-in queue has different responsibilities. It's usable to late-bind events, execute more prioritized code first or run your whole plugin in a lower priority as your other scripts to create a non-blocking plugin. Put everything you want to execute only when nothing is blocking or you want to run in a lower priority inside the queue. It will executed automatically when nothing else is running.

var throttledFunction = this._throttle(250, function() {
    // will be executed once every 250 milliseconds
    this._addToQueue(function() {
        // will only be executed when nothing else is executed
    });
});

jQuery(window).on("scroll", throttledFunction);

Bugs / Feature request

Please report bugs and feel free to ask for new features directly on GitHub.

License

This boilerplate is license-free. Just use it as you like. :)