Question

I’ve run into a javascript question that I don’t know how to resolve. I’m grouping a bunch of variables and methods into a DocManager object. Everything related to managing “documents” in my application lives here. Basically, the DocManager acts like a class with a single instance.

Ex:

var DocManager = {
    doc_list : [],  //Array of documents containing content and metadata
    doc_index : 0,  //Index of the currently visible document
    loadDocList : function( collection_id, csrf_token, seq_list ){
      ...
    },
    showDocument : function(seq_index){
      ...,
    },
   ...
};

Now I’ve run into a situation where I’d like to subclass DocManager for use on different pages with different controls. I need to add some methods and overwrite others. Most of the functionality the object will stay the same.

What’s the easiest way to do this? I know javascript has a class/prototyping syntax for full-fledged object-orientation, and others have built OOP frameworks for js, but that seems like overkill for this situation. I’d prefer to not learn a lot of new syntax to carry out this simple kind of object orientation. What would you recommend?

Answer 1

You can simply overwrite the functions you have assigned to it.

YourDocuManager.showDocument = function(index, newindex, whatever) {
....
}

from that moment it’ll use the new function assigned.