ember-ref-bucket

This addon was created as a rethinking of ember-ref-modifier, with a more simplified API and without some of the downsides of the previous implementation.

The addon allows users to get access to DOM nodes inside components, including accessing wrapping/destroying logic.

A simple use case:

• applying ref modifier with passed name to an element.

<div {{create-ref "FavouriteNode"}}>hello</div>

• gain access to it inside the component class as a decorated property

import Component from '@glimmer/component';
import { ref } from 'ember-ref-bucket';

export default class MyComponent extends Component {
  @ref("FavouriteNode") node; 
  // this.node === "<div>hello</div>"
}

---

API differences, comparing to ember-ref-modifier:

In ember-ref-modifier ref modifier accept 2 positional arguments {{ref this "property"}}:

1. context to set path (this)
2. path to set on context ("property")

In ember-ref-bucket ref modifier accept 1 positional argument {{create-ref "field"}}:

1. reference name ("field")

reference name should be passed as an argument to the @ref("field") decorator, to allow it to find the reference by name.

Compatibility

• Ember.js v3.24 or above
• Ember CLI v3.24 or above
• Node.js v14 or above

Installation

ember install ember-ref-bucket

Usage

Examples

Simple player

<audio {{create-ref "player"}} src="music.mp3"></audio>
<button {{on "click" this.onPlay}}>Play</button>

import Component from '@glimmer/component';
import { ref } from 'ember-ref-bucket';
import { action } from '@ember/object';

export class Player extends Component {
  @ref('player') audioNode;
  @action onPlay() {
    this.audioNode.play()
  }
}

Link div to node property.

<div {{create-ref "field"}} ></div>

import Component from '@glimmer/component';
import { ref } from 'ember-ref-bucket';

export default class MyComponent extends Component {
  @ref("field") node = null;
}

Dynamically show div content updates

<div {{create-tracked-ref "field"}}>hello</div>

{{get (tracked-ref-to "field") "textContent"}}

Use div as component argument

<div {{create-ref "field"}}>hello</div>

<SecondComponent @helloNode={{ref-to "field"}} />

Use registerNodeDestructor

This method is very useful if you want to wrap the node and control its lifecycle.

<div {{create-ref "field"}}>

import Component from '@glimmer/component';
import { ref, registerNodeDestructor } from 'ember-ref-bucket';

class NodeWrapper {
  constructor(node) {
    this.node = node;
  }
  destroy() {
    this.node = null;
  }
  value() {
    return this.node.textContent;
  }
}

export default class WrappedNodeComponent extends Component {
  @ref('field', (node) => {
    const instance = new NodeWrapper(node);
    registerNodeDestructor(node, () => instance.destroy());
    return instance;
  }) node = null;
  get value() {
    return this.node?.value();
  }
}

Available decorators:

import { ref, globalRef, trackedRef, trackedGlobalRef } from 'ember-ref-bucket';

/*
  ref - usage: @ref('foo', nodeWrapFn?), ref to bucket with current component context
  globalRef - usage: @globalRef('foo', nodeWrapFn?), ref to global context (app)
  trackedRef - usage: @trackedRef('foo', nodeWrapFn?), tracked ref to local context
  trackedGlobalRef - usage: @trackedGlobalRef('foo', nodeWrapFn?), tracked ref to global context (app)

*/

Available methods:

import { registerNodeDestructor, unregisterNodeDestructor } from 'ember-ref-bucket';

/*
  registerNodeDestructor(node, fn) - to assign any ref-node destructor
  unregisterNodeDestructor(node, fn) - to remove assigned ref-node destructor 

  usage will be like:

  @ref('field', (node) => {
    const item = new InputMask(node);
    registerNodeDestructor(node, () => item.destroy());
    return item;
  });
*/

/* 
  nodeFor - functional low-level primitive to get node access
*/

import { nodeFor } from 'ember-ref-bucket';

const domNode = nodeFor(this, 'field');

Definition of @trackedRef decorators

• If you use dom node in @tracked chain calculations, you should use trackedRef.

• If you don't need to rerun the tracked chain (for example, you use ref only for some event-based dom access), you should not use trackedRef.

Definition of {{create-tracked-ref}} modifiers

• If you need to watch for node changes (resize, content, attributes), you can use the create-tracked-ref modifier. It can add observe resizing and mutations for the associated element and will mark it as "dirty" for any mutation.

Options:

• resize - default: false, if truthy observes the resizing of the DOM element.
• attributes - default: false, if truthy observes the changing of any attribute on the DOM element.
• character - default: false, if truthy observes the change of the innerText of the DOM element. Note that setting innerText can change the children or the character depending on the current content of the element.
• children - default: false, if truthy observes changes to the list of direct children of the DOM element.
• subtree - default: false, if truthy observes the above options on the entire DOM subtree, not just the element decorated by the modifier.

Definition of {{tracked-ref-to}} helpers

• If you need to recalculate helper if some dom node changes (size, children, attributes), you need to use tracked-ref-to helper.
• If you don't need it (you need to just have ref to dom node), you should choose ref-to helper.

Template-only components

• create-ref modifier and ref-to helpers will not work in template-only components (because of no context). You should use create-global-ref and global-ref-to instead. You can also provide a bucket param to the create-ref modifier / helper.

---

The addon provide only 1 modifier (create-ref) and 1 helper (ref-to). Other derivatives will be transformed, and are described below:

Modifiers will be transformed according to this table:

Invocation	Will be transformed to
{{create-ref "foo"}}	{{create-ref "foo" bucket=this}}
{{create-tracked-ref "foo"}}	{{create-ref "foo" bucket=this tracked=true}}
{{create-global-ref "foo"}}	{{create-ref "foo" bucket=undefined}}
{{create-tracked-global-ref "foo"}}	{{create-ref "foo" bucket=undefined tracked=true}}

Helpers will be transformed according to this table:

Invocation	Will be transformed to
{{ref-to "foo"}}	{{ref-to "foo" bucket=this}}
{{tracked-ref-to "foo"}}	{{ref-to "foo" bucket=this tracked=true}}
{{global-ref-to "foo"}}	{{ref-to "foo" bucket=undefined}}
{{tracked-global-ref-to "foo"}}	{{ref-to "foo" bucket=undefined tracked=true}}

---

Contributing

See the Contributing guide for details.

Version matrix:

Ember-Modifier 4 - v5; Ember 3.28 - v4; Ember 3.24 - v3

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License.