Comments on: Technique: Storing Arbitrary Objects in HTML Links

By: Roger Braunstein

Roger Braunstein — Wed, 12 Sep 2007 19:59:23 +0000

A better solution to storing objects in HTML text (which will run much faster as well) is creating a simple UID hash of the objects you need to reference back to, storing the UID in the event: href, and looking up the original object reference in your hash.

This approach might be more useful in some cases, for example if you wish to forget about the original objects or collect them or re-use their references for other data; then storing a full copy in the HTML will preserve the objects.

By: Roger Braunstein

Roger Braunstein — Wed, 12 Sep 2007 19:54:35 +0000

Art, this would be used only for your code to link objects at runtime. I’ve used this technique to be lazy about building UIs that use one HTML textfield instead of multiple text fields. I agree that this has serious problems for any sort of human-entered data, and I would never use it for that.

And whether it’s too loosely typed or not really depends on what you’re using it for. Usually I’m just storing an ID or a few string keys, and I would never give a class outside the one that created this htmlText navigation element direct access to those untyped Objects. That said, I do agree with you that this is a hack… I just happen to think it’s a cute one. I should have made that more clear.

By: Art Monstro

Art Monstro — Wed, 12 Sep 2007 19:44:22 +0000

I question the use of embedding object data in html. Basically you have a loosely formatted string(html) in which you are embedding arbitrary object data.

Really you would be better off using XML with nodes within your text data. Consider the circumstance of having to allow an end user (or even a CMS) update the data of your links — there’s no enforcement of standards.

Also, if you’re still doing new Object() and setting properties, youre already screwed. Its too loosely typed.

By: dispatchEvent » Blood, Sweat, Tears, but Mostly Cupcakes

dispatchEvent » Blood, Sweat, Tears, but Mostly Cupcakes — Thu, 06 Sep 2007 06:37:51 +0000

[...] site also uses a bit of the dynamic text wrapping and object serialization techniques I posted about [...]

By: gabriel montagnÃ©

this technique is really really cool.

there’s one “silly” shortcoming, not to this technique, but to html links with ‘event:’ in general, pointed here:

http://www.blog.lessrain.com/?p=584

you can’t control the context menu for these links, and if you open them not directly but through the “Open” item on the context menu, not only the event will not be dispatched, but the player will pass the broswer the url, which, of course, will not be understood.

How could this be worked around?

By: Romeo

Romeo — Wed, 20 Jun 2007 13:32:06 +0000

Really nice … can i use it to build a TagCloud?