How do I inject a Coldbox plugin into every handler? - coldfusion

We have some plugins that are used throughout a Coldbox application.
Is there a way to globally inject these without having to manually specify the property for each one?
I've looked through the Wirebox docs, but can't see anything relevant. (Entirely possible I'm overlooking something; it's a long and dense page.)
It would seem like decorating the FrameworkSupertype might be a way to do this, but I can't find any mention of doing that.

I'll point out that Stack Overflow also requires logging in and typing a subject :)
There are several ways to accomplish this and honestly any way works.
The first would be to simply call getPlugin("myPlugin") everywhere you want to use it since the getPlugin() method is available in every handler, view, and layout.
The second would be to use mixin injection and place the following at the top of every handler and then access the plugin from the variables scope:
property name="myPlugin" inject="coldbox:plugin:myPlugin";
The third would be to have all your handlers extend a base handler like Joel suggested and place the DI property in your base handler.
The fourth, which you mentioned, would be to use an AOP aspect and bind it to the init() method for every CFC in the handlers directory and set the plugin into the variables scope as an "after" advice.
A fifth option, would be to use an interceptor to listen to the afterHandlerCreation announcement, and manually inject the plugin into the oHandler object.
And a sixth possibility would be to use the requestStartHandler or a the preProcess interception point and place a reference to your plugin in the private request collection (prc) which will also be available in the views and layouts.
So lots of options, and honestly that probably isn't even all of them. Personally, I'd probably use the afterHandlerCreation interceptor, but you should find the one that works best for you and run with it!

Related

architecture question - using sub routes vs components

I am trying to build a UI with left side bar having filters and right side having actual filtered data.
For loading data into the dynamic part of the UI(right side), which approach is considered better in terms of code quality and app performance ?
Use sub routes (for dynamic part of the UI)
Use separate components that load their own data (for dynamic part of
the UI)
There is not a direct correct answer for that; you can use both ways but here is a few things to consider and in the end I generally prefer to use sub-routes due to the following:
Waiting for UI to load: In case you are using separate components to load their own data; then you need to handle the loading state of the components. What I mean is; if you simply use sub-routes; then model hooks (model, beforeModel, etc.) will wait for the promises to be solved before displaying the data. If you simply provide a loading template (see the guide for details) it will be displayed by default. In case you use components, you might need to deal with displaying an overlay/spinner to give a better UX.
Error Handling: Similarly like loading state management; Ember has already built in support for error handling during route hook methods. You will need to deal with that on your own if you prefer components to make the remote calls. (See guide for details)
Application State: Ember is SPA framework; it is common practice to synchronize application state with the URL. If you use sub-routes; you can simply make use of the query parameters (see the guide for details) and you will be able to share the URL with others and the application will load with the same state. It is a little bit trickier to do the same with components; you still need to use query parameters within the routes and pass the parameters to the components to do that.
Use of component hook methods: If you intend to use the components then you will most likely need to use component hook methods to open the application with default filter values. This means you will need to make some remote call to the server within one or more of init, willRender, didReceiveAttrs component hook methods. I personally do not like remote calling within those methods; because I feel like this should better be done within routes and data should be passed to the components; but this is my personal taste of coding that you should approach the case differently and this is perfectly fine.
Data down, actions up keeps components flexible
In your specific example, I'll propose a third option: separate components that emit actions, have their data loaded by the route's controller, and never manipulate their passed parameters directly in alignment with DDAU.
I would have one component, search-filter searchParams=searchParams onFilterChange=(action 'filterChanged'), for the search filter and another component that is search-results data=searchResults to display the data.
Let's look at the search filter first. Using actions provides you with maximum flexibility since the search filter simply emits some sort of search object on change. Your controller action would look like:
actions: {
filterChanged(searchParams){
this.set('searchParams', searchParams);
//make the search and then update `searchResults`
}
}
which means your search-filter component would aggregate all of the search filter fields into a single search object that's used as the lone parameter of the onFilterChange.
You may think now, "well, why not just do the searching from within the component?" You can, but doing so in a DRY way would mean that on load, you first pass params to the component, a default search is made on didInsertElement which emits a result in an action, which updates the searchResults value. I find this control flow to not be the most obvious. Furthermore, you'd probably need to emit an onSearchError callback, and then potentially other actions / helper options if the act of searching / what search filter params can be applied together ever becomes conditionally dependent on the page in the app.
A component that takes in a search object and emits an action every time a search filter field changes is dead simple to reason about. Since the searchParams are one-way bound, any route that uses this component in it's template can control whether a field field updates (by optionally preventing the updating of searchParams in an invalid case) or whether the search ever fires based of validation rules that may differ between routes. Plus, theres no mocking of dependencies during unit testing.
Think twice before using subroutes
For the subroutes part of your question, I've found deeply nested routes to almost always be an antipattern. By deeply, I mean beyond app->first-child->second child where the first child is a sort of menu like structure that controls the changing between the different displays at the second child level by simple {{link-to}} helpers. If I have to share state between parents and children, I create a first-child-routes-shared-state service rather than doing the modelFor or controllerFor song and dance.
You must also consider when debating using children route vs handlebars {{if}} {{else}} sections whether the back button behavior should return to the previous step or return to the route before you entered the whole section. In a Wire transfer wizard that goes from create -> review -> complete, should I really be able to press the back button from complete to review after already having made the payment?
In the searchFilter + displayData case, they're always in the same route for me. If the search values need to be persistent on URL refresh, I opt for query params.
Lastly, note well that just because /users/:id/profile implies nesting, you can also just use this.route('user-profile', { 'path' : 'users/:id/profile' }) and avoid the nesting altogether.

testing a component with complex angular components nested inside using PageObjects

Our Application has components which consume components with consume components of varying complexity. So i just want the input on the page, to validate when an object is set that the text is correct. The issue is that it is one of these subcomponents.
My colleague told me that there is 2 ways to do this, The first is to use Page Objects, and Chaining annotation to find it on my page, and then find the next id etc until my input is found. It requires me to look through another teams' Component Markup to narrow it down to the input i want to leverage. I dont believe I should have to go into another component definition, or a definition of a definition to get the appropriate chain to get this arbitrary input. It starts to create issues where if a lateral team creates changes unbeknownst to me, my PO will be broken.
The other option my friend asked was to use fixture.query to find the component. This would be as simple as:
fixture.query((el)=> el.attribute["id"] == "description",
(comp){
expect(comp.value, value);
});`
Using Query looks at the markup but then will automatically componentize it as the appropriate SubComponent. In this case, comp.value is the value stored in the HTML. So, if i did something like:
fixture.update((MainComponent comp) {
comp.myinput.value = new Foo();
});
Then I am setting and getting this programmatically, so i am a bit unsure if it properly would reflect what is on the screen.
Whats the best course of action? It seems PO would be better, but im not sure if there is a way around having to deep query for input boxes outside of the component i am testing.
Thanks
I don't think I have a definitive answer for you but I can tell you how we do it at Google. For pretty much any component we provide the page object alongside the component. This is twofold it is for testing that widget, and also so we can have this as a shareable resource for other tests.
For leaf widgets the page objects are a little less fleshed out and are really just there for the local test. For components that are shared heavily the page object is a bit more flushed out for reusability. Without this much of the API for the widget (html, css, etc) we would need to consider public and changes to them would be very hard (person responsible for making the public breaking change needs to fix all associated code.) With it we can have a contract to only support the page object API and html structure changes are not considered breaking changes. At times we have even gone so far as to have two page objects for a widget. One for the local test, and one to share. Sometimes the API you want to expose for a local test is much more than you want people to use themselves.
We can then compose these page objects into higher level page objects that represent the widget. Good page objects support a higher level of abstraction for that widget. For example a calendar widget would let you go to the next/previous month, get the current selected date, etc. rather than directly exposing the buttons/inputs that accomplish those actions.
We plan to expose these page objects for angular_components eventually, but we are currently working on how to expose these. Our internal package structure is different than what we have externally. We have many packages per individual widget (page_objects, examples, widget itself) and we need to reconcile this externally before we expose them.
Here is an example:
import 'package:pageloader/objects.dart';
import 'material_button_po.dart';
/// Webdriver page object for `material-yes-no-buttons` component.
#EnsureTag('material-yes-no-buttons')
class MaterialYesNoButtonsPO {
#ByClass('btn-yes')
#optional
MaterialButtonPO yesButton;
#ByClass('btn-no')
#optional
MaterialButtonPO noButton;
}

Ember 2.0 Controllers or Just Components...?

I have read that Ember2 is attempting to remove controllers. I was even linked to this RFC https://github.com/ef4/rfcs/blob/routeable-components/active/0000-routeable-components.md. However, I have been following the tutorial, and they insist on making a Controller. Do we still need to make Controllers or is this out of date?
Controllers are still needed (and thus haven't been deprecated) for two reasons: query parameters, and because components aren't routable yet. You can follow the tutorial's use of controllers without it causing you too much grief later on.
However, if you want to pull ahead of the tutorial, you can use components instead, barring the two caveats above. There is no way around using controllers for query parameters, but you can avoid the lack of routable components using this simple hack:
Let's say you're creating a Route called Dashboard. The tutorial will tell you to create corresponding Controller and Template as well. Go ahead and do that, but delete the Controller. Create a component called dashboard-main, move the logic from the Controller to the component.js file and the Template to the component's Template. Then, in the Dashboard Template, just refer to the component:
{{dashboard-main items=model foo=foo bar=bar ...}}
Depending on what you're doing in the Route, you still may need the setupController() method (that's still the only way you can move values other than the model from the route to the template so that they can be passed to the component), and of course your controller/component implementation may have other minor changes, but that's the basic gist of it.
To be most ready for when controllers are deprecated, you should avoid them by using components instead.

Where can I find documentation on Ember's {{control}}?

I don't see a listing in the Ember API. Where can I find which parameters for this template method? Can I use it, given that it's an unfinished feature?
It is not a good idea to use {{control}} yet as it is still being developed and is very likely to change behaviour. Basically it will be like a sandboxed {{render}} which won't inherit any context. It is mentioned on this page of the emberjs guide:
{{control}} works like render, except it uses a new controller instance for every call, instead of reusing the singleton controller.
This helper is currently under heavy development, and will likely change soon.

Using the Coldbox framework, is there a way to intercept a renderView call and execute a different template?

I am trying to learn Coldbox to perhaps replace the current framework I am using. One of the features that I currently use is the ability to override any of the template inclusions by convention.
Essentially, lets say I have a view, "views/home.cfm"
<h1>I am the default theme</h1>
and that is all well and good. But lets say that I have a different view, "themes/[theme-name]/views/home.cfm"
<h1>I am the user chosen theme</h1>
that I want to include conditionally (say there is a cookie to determine what theme is in use). Also, if the file does not exist, the default/fallback view should be rendered.
Is there any way of doing this overriding the system functions?
I looked at interceptors, and the preViewRender and postViewRender interceptors seem like the place to do something like this, but there doesn't seem to be any way of manipulating the actual workflow. If seems to be mainly pre/post processing of the content. For instance, there doesn't seem to be a way to "return false" to tell the renderView method to not actually render the view. Or any way to affect the location in which the view is to be found.
Any ideas?
Tyler,
The ColdBox Framework is quite flexible. It is possible to do what you desire but I don't think modifying renderView() is the best way to resolve this--although, you most definitely can.
I would encourage you to create a User Defined Function in the /includes/helpers/ApplicationHelper.cfm file that contains the logic you require. The functions that are added to this helper file are accessible from anywhere in the framework. This would allow you to create a function called "renderSkin()" that contains the logic you need. RenderSkin() would ultimitly call "renderView()" when you finally figured out which template you wanted to render for that user.
Respectfully,
Aaron Greenlee
I would suggest you go with the interceptor route, but change the layout instead of the view.
From the postEvent interceptor you can get the processedEvent key from the interceptData to change the layout.
Otherwise you could just make the check part of the layout page. The layout can the be a switch statement (or a more OO approach) $including the themed layout files as needed. This has the advantage of giving you a chance to emit custom interception points and having common functionality (css, js)