Question

I need to append the following HTML fragment into a document, substituting a value for the display_spinner param:

<script type="text/javascript" src="http://public.tableausoftware.com/javascripts/api/viz_v1.js"></script>
<div class="tableauPlaceholder" id="tableauPlaceholder" style="visibility:hidden;width:654px; height:1469px;background-image: url('http://tableau.russellchristopher.org:81/Background.gif'); top: 0px; left: 0px; width: 100%; margin-left: 76px;">
    <noscript>
        <a href="#"><img alt="Analytics, Inc. " 
                    src="http://tableau.russellchristopher.org:81/Background.gif" 
                    style="border: none" /></a>
    </noscript>
    <object class="tableauViz" width="654" height="1469" style="display:none;">
        <param name="host_url" value="http%3A%2F%2Fpublic.tableausoftware.com%2F"
        />
        <param name="site_root" value="" />
        <param name="name" value="AnalyticsIncJavaScript&#47;AnalyticsInc" />
        <param name="tabs" value="no" />
        <param name="toolbar" value="yes" />
        <param name="static_image" value="tableau.russellchristopher.org:81/Background.gif"
        />
        <param name="animate_transition" value="yes" />
        <param name="display_static_image" value="yes" />
        <param name="display_spinner" value="" id="display_spinner" />
        <param name="display_overlay" value="yes" />
        <param name="display_count" value="yes" />
    </object>
</div>

Here’s what I’ve come up with (JSFiddle here: http://jsfiddle.net/9vBGq/ )

$(document).ready(function () {
    var $placeholder = $('<div class="tableauPlaceholder" style="width:654px; height:1469px;background-image:  url("http%3A%2F%2Ftableau.russellchristopher.org:81%2FBackground.gif"); top: 0px; left: 0px; width: 100%; margin-left: 76px;"></div>'),
        $noscript = $('<noscript> <a href="#"><img alt="Analytics, Inc. " src="http%3A%2F%2Ftableau.russellchristopher.org:81/Background.gif" style="border: none" /></a></noscript>'),
        $tableauViz = $('<object class="tableauViz" width="654" height="1469"></object>'),
        $host_url = $('<param name="host_url" value="http%3A%2F%2Fpublic.tableausoftware.com%2F">'),
        $site_root = $('<param name="site_root" value="" />'),
        $sheetName = $('<param name="name" value="AnalyticsIncJavaScript&#47;AnalyticsInc" />'),
        $tabs = $('<param name="tabs" value="no" />'),
        $toolbar = $('<param name="toolbar" value="yes" />'),
        $static_image = $('<param name="static_image" value="http://tableau.russellchristopher.org:81/Background.gif"/>'),
        $animate_trasnsition = $('<param name="animate_transition" value="yes" />'),
        $display_static_image = $('<param name="display_static_image" value="yes" />'),
        $display_overlay = $('<param name="display_overlay" value="yes" />'),
        $display_count = $('<param name="display_count" value="yes" />'),
        $display_spinner = $('<param name="display_spinner" value="' + 'no' + '" />');
    $placeholder.append($noscript).append($tableauViz).append($host_url).append($site_root).append($sheetName).append($tabs).append($toolbar).append($static_image).append($animate_trasnsition).append($display_static_image).append($display_overlay).append($display_count).append($display_spinner).appendTo('body');
    console.log(document.body);
});​

From what I can see in my console.log, there are multiple problems – and I’m still too new to this stuff to know exactly why:

• The URL Encoding in my <div> looks munged. What did I do wrong?
• The <a> tag nested inside the noscript block looks bad
• There is a closing </object> tag when it should close after I list my params
• Closing /> on each my my params is missing- again URL encoding
  strangeness, I assume but not sure how to handle.

I suspect you pros and kick me in the right direction in a couple of seconds….please kick me as you see fit? Thanks.

Answer 1

I think the best solution would be to create a template in your html and read that instead of making it in javascript..

Something like

<!-- template code follows -->
<script type="text/template" id="tableau">
<div class="tableauPlaceholder" id="tableauPlaceholder" ..
..snip..
        <param name="display_spinner" value="{placeholder}" id="display_spinner" />
..snip..
</div>
</script>
<!-- end of template -->

then you need this code to load the template and change the placeholder

var template = $('#tableau').html(),
    filledTemplate = template.replace('{placeholder}','value for spinner');

$('body').append( filledTemplate );

Demo at http://jsfiddle.net/gaby/9vBGq/1/

(I have removed the noscript element from the template since everything is done through script)