Question

How do I invoke a private method from a public one and vice versa if I follow the plugin authoring guide?

I usually declare the private methods within the init method like:

var methods = {
    init: function(options) {
        var settings = $.extend({
        }, options);

        return this.each(function() {
            var $this = $(this);
            var data = $this.data('griffin-editor');


            this.trimSpaceInSelection = function () {
                 //how do I call a public method here?
                 //to get the this context correct.
            }

            if (typeof data !== 'undefined') {
                return this;
            }

            //the rest of the code.

It might be the incorrect thing to do?

Answer 1

If by ‘this context correct’ you mean that you want call some public method with this set to value which this has inside trimSpaceInSelection then you can do it like this:

....
this.trimSpaceInSelection = function () {
    methods.somePublicMethod.apply(this, arguments); // this will pass all arguments passed to trimSpaceInSelection to somePublicMethod
}
....

And if you want set this inside public method to current jQuery collection then:

....
this.trimSpaceInSelection = function () {
    methods.somePublicMethod.apply($this, arguments); // this will pass all arguments passed to trimSpaceInSelection to somePublicMethod
}
....