Software development and programming - Showing posts from 2025

Showing posts from 2025

The approach you take when creating a "class"

What style do you use for creating a "class"? Different approaches to creating classes in JavaScript are discussed, including the prototype approach, which allows instances to share a single copy of methods, and closures, which create separate copies of methods for each instance, useful for private methods but less memory-efficient. Object literals are also mentioned, although they are not suitable for inheritance. Ultimately, JavaScript does not have classes in the traditional sense, but class-like behavior can be simulated using constructor functions and prototypes, with the choice of approach depending on code requirements and developer preferences. There are a few ways to get class-like behavior in javascript, the most common seem to be prototype based like this: function Vector(x, y, x) { this.x = x; this.y = y; this.z = z; return this; } Vector.prototype.length = function () { return Math.sqrt(this.x * this.x ... ); } and closure based approaches s...

Enabling and Disabling Radio Buttons in JavaScript The code intended to enable and disable radio buttons based on the selection from a dropdown menu functions correctly in Internet Explorer but encounters compatibility issues in Firefox and Safari, particularly when users navigate using the keyboard. In these browsers, the radio buttons do not update their enabled or disabled state until the user clicks elsewhere on the page, which can lead to confusion. To enhance cross-browser compatibility, it is advisable to implement a keyup event on the dropdown menu to ensure that the radio buttons respond immediately to keyboard navigation. Additionally, the code should be modified to use document.getElementById for accessing form elements instead of relying on non-standard properties, and it is recommended to assign IDs to the form elements for more reliable referencing. These adjustments will help create a more consistent user experience across different browsers. Summary of the Code Issue...

What's the difference in closure style There are two popular closure styles in javascript. The first I call anonymous constructor : new function() { var code... } and the inline executed function : (function() { var code... })(); are there differences in behaviour between those two? Is one "better" over the other? 5 Answers Both cases will execute the function, the only real difference is what the return value of the expression may be, and what the value of "this" will be inside the function. Basically behaviour of new expression Is effectively equivalent to var tempObject = {}; var result = expression.call(tempObject); if (result is not an object) result = tempObject; Although of course tempObject and result are transient values you can never see (they're implementation details in the interpreter), and there is no JS mechanism to do the "is not an object" check. Broadly speaking the "new function() { .. }" meth...

Getting the text from a drop-down box

Getting the text from a drop-down box This gets the value of whatever is selected in my dropdown menu. document.getElementById('newSkill').value I cannot however find out what property to go after for the text that's currently displayed by the drop down menu. I tried "text" but that didn't have the answer, does anybody here know? For those not sure, here's the HTML for a drop down box. <select name="newSkill" id="newSkill"> <option value="1">A skill</option> <option value="2">Another skill</option> <option value="3">Yet another skill</option> </select> 14 Answers Based on your example HTML code, here's one way to get the displayed text of the currently selected option: var skillsSelect = document.getElementById("newSkill"); var selectedText = skillsSelect.options[skillsSelect.selectedIndex].text; For those late to the party,...