Question

Lets say I have an object constructor that a third-party page developer can insert in their page, called “Widget”. It could be something like a tooltip, for example.

var Widget = function(settings, callbacks) {
    this.hide = function() {
        //some code...
    };

    this.show = function() {
        this.isShowing = true;

        //more code...
    }
}

When this Widget is shown, I want to hide any other shown Widget. Is there a way the “show” method can call the “hide” method on the other instance(s) of Widget whose “this.isShowing” is true, or on all instances of Widget?

Answer 1

You can, but you need to maintain references to those instances. You could maintain them on a property of the function itself:

var Widget = function(settings, callbacks) {
  Widget.instances.push(this);
  // More code
};
Widget.instances = [];

And then, just access Widget.instances to get the all the widgets created.

You may want to create some kind of destructor to remove a widget from the list though (myWidget.destroy() or something), because this might generate a memory leak if you instantiate too many of them.