non-Ajax equivalent of changeContent() method and more.

[stanislaw]

Hello, Thomas.

Please, consider adding following public methods:

1. Method "currentScroll" (or currentOffset maybe?) which will return current offset. Without having it, I need to rip it now from .data("scrollWrapper").scrollLeft() (I found you do it this way in a source code).

2. Method which is Non-AJAX equivalent of changeContent but allowing to just insert(after/before) or replace simple html content. This is how I do it now, ripping more low-level stuff from your source:

$(smooth_div).data('scrollableArea').html(content);

var current_scroll = $(smooth_div).data("scrollWrapper").scrollLeft();

$(smooth_div).smoothDivScroll("recalculateScrollableArea"); 

$(smooth_div).smoothDivScroll('move', current_scroll);

I hope this piece clearly demonstrates the need of the second method.

Maybe, 'currentScroll' method even is not needed, if non-Ajax 'changeContent' will encapsulate preserving of current offset after content change.

Also please see my 'sortable_smooth' branch in my fork of your repo: https://github.com/stanislaw/Smooth-Div-Scroll/tree/sortable_smooth.

See there 'sortable_smooth.html'. It is just your demo index.html with three or four lines added. It is a demonstration of how SmoothDivScroll can play very nice with jQuery Sortable so itt becomes Smooth Sortable Div Scroller. ;)
Maybe you will want somehow adapt it to your examples page.

I found the possibility of this mixture (smooth sortables) very useful in my current project.

That is all!

Thanks for a great work on plugin!

[tkahn]

Hi!

I love the work you are putting in to contribute!
It sounds like a good idea to have a method with which you can add "raw HTML" right into the scroller without using AJAX. I'll also look into the possibilities to access raw data from the plugin with new public methods.

/Thomas

[tkahn]

I'm looking over the code right now and I think the function for adding or replacing content (changeContent) will become bloated and complicated to understand and use if I just keep adding new functionality to it, especially since I want to add a filtering option to the AJAX content loader. Therefore I'm now working on a solution where I split it into three different methods, each with a specific purpose:

---

getFlickrContent
Arguments are:
flickrFeedURL - a valid URL to a Flickr feed - string
manipulationMethod - add or replace (default) - string
addWhere - first or last (default) - string

---

getAjaxContent
Arguments are:
ajaxContentURL - a valid URL to an AJAX content source - string
manipulationMethod - add or replace (default) - string
addWhere - first or last (default) - string
filterTag - a jQuery selector that matches the elements from the AJAX content source that you want, for example ".myClass" or "#thisDiv" or "div" - string

---

getHtmlContent
Arguments are:
htmlContent - any raw HTML that you want - string
manipulationMethod - add or replace (default) - string
addWhere - first or last (default) - string

---

I know this means that people will have to look over their code if they want to upgrade, but in the long run I think it's worth it.

/Thomas

[stanislaw]

Sorry with the delay.

These are good points! Let me know, when you merge this!

[tkahn]

Implemented in release 1.3!