Introducing tvHtmlHelper and TagCreator

I just saw this helper class called pQuery on ajaxian today .written by vikas from delhi ,that offers a very modest way of generating your html code with the necessary attributes for the html elements ,etc .

The good news is that its nice to see someone featured on ajaxian . (both vikas and myself are 23 btw...cheers to that ! ). The bad news ,i knew he could do better .

The API needed a little bit more extensibility and scalability . And thats how i got on a hacking marathon to show how to integrate this class ive made to make ...say a tag creator .Here is vika's code usage :

PHP implementation of pQuery:

1. =$pquery->form_remote_tag(array('url'=>'index.php?task=ajax','update'=>'#idtoupdate'));?>
2. Field : "field"
3. < type = "submit">

   
   

My first comments ? Very shabby !

Here my custom built html helper , i write - that would not only go with jQuery ,but heck i use it for spitting out everything from body tags with onload 's , to hr tags , and tables -tr's running in reccursive loops .

Demo of tvhtmlHelper.php:

/**
* @description - A simple Tag creator written in php that uses tvHTMLHelper
* @author Bhasker V Kode
* @date Feb23,2007
* @copyright Some Rights Reserved
*/
class TagCreator extends tvHTMLHelper{
public function addTag($type=NULL , $tag=NULL){
switch($type){
case 'technorati':
/*OUTPUT :will output the html for a tag .
return $this->insert('a','start',array("href"=> "http://www.technorati.com/tags/$tag" ,"rel"=>"tag")) . $tag . $this->insert('a','end') ;
break;
/*
case 'youtubeVideoLink':
// follow similiar style to embed a youtube video , or so on for other widgets of your choice .
*/
}
}

$myInstant = new TagCreator;
echo $myInstant->addTag('html','start');
echo $myInstant->addTag('body','start',array("onload"=>"init();" , "class"="bC");
echo $myInstant->addTag('technorati','tvhtmlhelper');
echo $myInstant->addTag('technorati','bosky101');
echo $myInstant->addTag('technorati','php');
echo $myInstant->addTag('body','end');
echo $myInstant->addTag('html','end');

Notice the following design differences pQuery and tvHTMLHelper:

1. Inheritance is good for you !
   Primary usage pattern would be to extend this class where you deal with html a lot.
2. To echo or not to echo !
   If youve noticed ,in pQuery it prints instead of returning . Mine does not echo on its own .but return the html string instead ! .This can be used when you need to generate html to be used later ,like writing concatenating to a string /or sending mail /etc . Being generic never does any harm in helper classes. This i feel is a big pitfall in pQuery .
   
3. Clear cut definition boundaries of beginning and ending .
   The API has a startEnd for obvious reasons. This might be a major fallout in pQuery . If you do attempt to seperate presentation from logic , then why make it half way ? do it well or its better off not to do it at all .
   
4. Scalability.
   Now tvHtmlHelper does not limit you to jQuery but basically every web page . Heck ,i even use it for a custom build stringToXML class ive written where i could use the API in loops like this :
• $myInstant->insert('channels','start',array("length"=>1,"foo"=>"bar") );
• OR links
• $myInstant->insert('a','start',array("href"=>$link1,"id"=>"foo","class"=>"fadeClass") );
5. Useful across file types : xml ,html , tagging ,and link generation !
   You could even extend tvHtmlHelper to replace the < > symbols with custom ones or words .like ,what ever you pass through the API will come out as a technorati tag !
   

Ive put a demo page ,which you can check out . Ive ported tvHTMLHelper to both php4 as well as php5 . Have a look at the sourcecode ( rar file) !

I'd love to get any feedback on this ,or places where you might be able to use this .

Keep Clicking,
Bhasker V Kode

Technorati Tags: php, pQuery, ajaxian, tvHTMLHelper, bhaskervk, bosky101, code, tags, technorati, youtube, code