Question

I’m following this documentation and use it to download and apply data to the DOM. However, I don’t seem to be able to apply it as I’m getting:

this.html is not a function: this.html(ajax_load);

Code:

(function( $ ){
  $.fn.tasks = function() {

    // there's no need to do $(this) because
    // "this" is already a jquery object

    // $(this) would be the same as $($('#element'));

    $.ajax({
        url: "include/tasks_handler.php?action=gettasks&list=default",
        beforeSend: function() {
            this.html(ajax_load);
        },
        success: function(html){
            this.html(html);
        }
    });

  };
})( jQuery );


$("#taskList").tasks(); 

I’ve also tried $(this), which stops it from breaking, but it’s not injecting the content to the selector.

Ideas?

Answer 1

this within the ajax options refers to the options object and not the context of the plugin. A workaround is:

var that = this;
$.ajax({
    url: "include/tasks_handler.php?action=gettasks&list=default",
    beforeSend: function() {
        that.html(ajax_load);
    },
    success: function(html){
        that.html(html);
    }
});

This quick example demonstrates what’s happening:

var obj = {
    foo: function() {
        alert("bar");
    },
    bar: function() {
        alert(this.foo);
    }
};

obj.bar(); // function() { alert("bar"); }

This example better demonstrates what’s happening:

var options = {
    success: function(html) {
        this.html(html);
    },
    html: function(html) {
        alert("This is not the .html() you are looking for, move along." + html);     
    } 
}

options.success("some html");

Fiddle: http://jsfiddle.net/GTScL/