Question

What is the deal with passing a parameter from a function into a setTimeout call? Why is path here returning undefined? And what should I do instead?

$('.curatorSpace').bind('click', function() {
    var path = $(this).attr('data-path');
    setTimeout(function(path) {
        if($('#curatorRibbon').hasClass('ui-draggable-dragging')){return false}
        runOverlay(path);
    }, 100);
});

Answer 1

You don’t need/must pass anything in there. path is a free variable and closured by the anonymous function you pass into setTimeout. Hence, you can just access it.

setTimeout(function() {
    if($('curatorRibbon').hasClass('ui-draggable-dragging')){return false}
    runOverlay(path);  // path gets resolved in the parent context
}, 100);

actually, by declaring path as formal parameter of that anonymous function, you’ve overwritten that variable lookup process through the scope chain. Just get rid of that.