Not able to move my inline JavaScript to an external file - javascript

I finished developing and testing my HTML intake form and it is working nicely with ajax, json, and validation, and mailing. To finalize the form for production, I attempted to move the JavaScript from the HTML page to an external file and provide a link to the file in the HTML page. The js file is called formjs.js, and the link to it was placed at the bottom of the HTML page as <script src="../js/formjs.js"></script>.
The way I moved the JavaScript is cutting the scripts and pasting to the new js page and same the page and linked to it in the HTML page as mentioned above.
Upon doing so, I received tons of error messages on the js page because many of the functions are looking for information that exists on the HTML and had no idea how to get it. For example, a document. For example, this following script:
var Server_response_value_failure = document.getElementById("server_response_value_failure");
gets the following error:this variable is assigned and value but was never used.
Another example:
end of function};
at the end of each function get the error message that unnecessary semicolon.
I am not sure how to link the formjs.js file back to the HTML. Otherwise, the form works perfectly fine if I leave the script on the HTML page.

its fine, its just eslint that gives these warnings. for example, it will complain if you declare a variable and assign a value but you dont use the variable later on.
or if you call a function that you declare "later down" in the file.

I don't know if this will help, but sometimes you want to put the entire body of your javascript file in round parenthesis like this
(function(...) {
...
})();
in the end, you put another round parenthesis. This basically acts like $.ready() in jQuery.
I don't know if this will help you. You might want to rewrite your code.

Related

Is it possible to load external js files/libraries into Acumatica?

I'm working on a new Acumatica screen for our company that will require some javascript code to retrieve and display a map object (from ESRI).
This code requires an external .js file that is included to the HTML by the javascript code itself. Everything works fine if I use a blank HTML page to test this.
The problem I have is that when I try using the same code from inside the Acumatica screen, it doesn't load this required external file, and therefore the code does not work properly.
I attempted to load the full .js file code along with my code, but it returned the following error:
error CS8095: Length of String constant exceeds current memory limit. Try splitting the string into multiple constants.
I haven't tried splitting this file into multiple strings (as the error message suggests), because I want to make sure there isn't a cleaner and more professional, direct/right way to do this.
Is it possible to manually import this external .js file into our Acumatica instance, so I can point to it instead? (in case it makes a difference if it's hosted in the same environment)
or, is there any way to make Acumatica able to load external files so we can keep using our current approach? (any setting that may be preventing external files from loading?)
I'm not sure i fully understand the question. What comes to mind however is you may be looking to use the PXJavaScript control. I used this link to help get my head wrapped around how to use the control. We had a need to trigger something off with Java Script and the PXJavaScript control got us to the end result we needed. Let me know if this gets you in the right direction?
Dynamically Change Button Color

best option for inserting javascript into multiple existing pages

The website I'm working on has hundreds of existing pages, and I want to insert an Autocomplete feature into every page. I don't want to have to put the Javascript <script src=> call into the hundred of pages. The field using the JS is contained in the Nav which is called on every page from a php include, so getting the HTML in is no problem.
There are a few places I think I could put the Javascript in -
1. Either add the Javascript functions to an existing Javascript Script that is called in the header,
2. or even put in the <script> call in an existing php include that calls the $_SESSION and mysql data to everypage, but that is called even before the <!DOCTYPE> declaration, so I don't think I would want to put it there.
3. But, because I would like to keep it in it's own file (In case it needs replacing, tidiness, etc) I want to keep the autocomplete Javascript in it's own file. Would it be ok to put a <script> call inside of an existing <script call>? I hope that is clear.
4. OR, put the <script src> inside the nav.php (which is called on everypage). But I'm not sure how well putting a PHP include inside of a Javascript file would work out.
If anyone has any opinions or advice as to which would work the best, please let me know. Thanks!
Best option is to create jquery plugin and use it where ever required. Dont forget to make proper use of $ or jquery, because it may crash between plugin and script file in which plugin is placed.

Managing page specific Javascript: 1 big file with conditionals or multiple files

In my project I have a load of functions that are used on every page, so I have put these in a single javascript file common.js and have included it in my footer template. My questions is, what is the best way to handle page-specific javscript?
For example, on one of my pages I have a google map. If my map js code is run on a page where I don't have an element with id map_canvas, I get an error.
Method 1: I could write some PHP which echos an additional script tag requesting map.js if and only if I'm on a map page.
Method 2: I could give the <body> of my map page an id of "map_page", then I could write a conditional clause in common.js along the lines of:
if (#map_page exists){
put contents of map.js here
}
The problem with method 1 is that it increases the number of requests to the server.
The problem with method 2 is that it bloats my common javascript file.
Please can somebody explain, which, if any would be the preferred method to do this, or if neither are suitable, what I should do instead?
I have approximately 10 page-specific javascript files to deal with.
Thanks
I would say that simpler is better. On every page, just add a script tag calling map.js. Or, in your common.js, you don't need to paste all of map.js's code. You can just create a new script tag with the js and call map.js like that. I would not recommend the php method. The easiest and simplest, therefore the least likely to be buggy method, is just to add another script tag to the pages that need it. Or if that is not an option, common.js could include this:
if(need map.js){
var mapjs=document.createElement("script");
mapjs.type="text/javascript";
mapjs.src="map.js";
document.body.appendChild(mapjs);
}

How to write javascript code using external files only

When using HTML5 Boilerplate, you are given a script.js file and the jquery file are all loaded after the body.
How do I know when to call certain code for a specific page? For eg. What if on /maps I want to load google maps dynamically, how do I accomplish this without putting it on the page and using script.js file while having it not load the map for all pages?
Basically, how do I structure my code when I can't have any script in my pages? How do I know what code to call for a particular page?
Script files that are included are immediately executed, so inside the script file you could have a section check the URL of the page you're on.
For example, something like this:
if (window.location.href === "http://myapp.com/maps") {
// call the map function or whatever ...
}
But, out of curiosity, why can't you add a script file to the specific page you're on? I'd only recommend the solution above if you absolutely cannot edit the HTML of your pages.
I too have the same question. I searched and just found these two
http://paulirish.com/2009/markup-based-unobtrusive-comprehensive-dom-ready-execution/
http://www.viget.com/inspire/extending-paul-irishs-comprehensive-dom-ready-execution/
I am going through of this, and not yet completely reviewed. See if it is useful to you in between.

Putting JavaScript at the end of the page produces an error

I recently read that for a faster web page load it's a good practice to put the JavaScript links at the end. I did, but now the functions of the referenced file doesn't work. If I put the link at the beginning of the page, everything is fine.
Does this thing of putting JavaScript at the end work only under certain circumstances?
I went through some testing with this as well. If you are loading a Javascript file it is faster to put it at the end BUT it does come with some important caveats.
The first is that doing this often made some of my visual effects noticeable. For example, if I was using jQuery to format a table, the table would come up unformatted and then the code would run to reformat it. I didn't find this to be a good user experience and would rather the page came up complete.
Secondly, putting it at the end made it hard to put code in your pages because often functions didn't exist yet. If you have this in your page:
$(function() {
// ...
});
Well that won't work until the jQuery object is defined. If it's defined at the end of your page the above will produce an error.
Now you could argue that all that styling code could be put in the external file but that would be a mistake for performance reasons. I started off doing that on a project and then found my page took a second to run through all the Javascript that had been centralized. So I created functions for the relevant behaviour and then called the appropriate ones in each page, reducing the Javascript load run time to 50-200ms.
Lastly, you can (and should) minimize the load time of Javascript by versioning your Javascript files and then using far-futures Expires headers so they're only loaded once (each time they're changed), at which point where they are in the file is largely irrelevant.
So all in all I found putting putting the Javascript files at the end of the file to be cumbersome and ultimately unnecessary.
You do have to pay attention to the ordering, but libraries like JQuery make it easy to do it right. At the end of the page, include all the .JS files you need, and then, either in a separate file or in the page itself, put the Jquery calls to act on the page contents.
Because JQ deals with css-style selectors, it's very easy to avoid any Javascript in the main body of the page - instead you attach them to IDs and classes.
This is called Unobtrusive Javascript
Every Yahoo YUI example file I remember has almost all the JavaScript at the end. For example,
Simple Event Handling
Basic Drag and Drop
JSON: Adding New Object Members During Parsing
It looks like Yahoo Practice is roughly "library code at the beginning of <body>, active code at the end of <body>."
Beware, though, this may result in the Flash of Unstyled Content syndrome.

Categories