Question

The problem with my plugin is that i need to expose var chart and maintain chainability. How can i accomplish this? This is the first plugin i wrote and i don’t know if chainability is really important to preserve. Thanks.

Html piece

<div id="chart1" class="chart"></div>
<div id="chart2" class="chart"></div>

Plugin invocation

$("div").chart();

Plugin definition

(function($) {

    $.fn.chart = function(options) {

       return this.each() // Maintain chainability
       {
           // Stuff, ajax call and then...
           var chart = new Highcharts(options);
           // Expose each chart variable for each container (<div>)
       }

    };

})(jQuery);

EDIT: added clarification about chart variable.

Answer 1

First, you should read Plugins/Authoring if you havent already. There are some good ideas in there.

Second, you can try something like this:

$.fn.chart = function(options)
{
    if(options=='get_charts')
        return charts;
    else
    {
        // Stuff, ajax call and then...
        var chart = new Highcharts(options);
    }
}

This would then be called normally with $('#something').charts({}); or $('#something').charts('get_charts');