ListExplorer

Master/detail user interface pattern navigated with a list box
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Demo: Simple list explorer

Overview

This component implements a master/detail user interface pattern that presents a list of choices with a ListBox. This component is built on top of Explorer, and uses ListBox as the "proxy list" to contain proxy elements for the items in the list.

Usage

import ListExplorer from 'elix/define/ListExplorer.js';
const listExplorer = new ListExplorer(); // or
const listExplorer = document.createElement('elix-list-explorer');

In HTML:

<script type="module" src="node_modules/elix/define/ListExplorer.js"></script>
<elix-listExplorer>
  <!-- List items go here. -->
</elix-listExplorer>

ListExplorer is appropriate when:

  • You want to let the user focus on a single item at a time.
  • The number of items may be large (20 to 100s of items). For large collections, it is helpful to keep the list of items sorted (e.g., alphabetically or chronologically).

See also

API

Class hierarchy:

The element defines the following shadow parts:

  • proxy: an element representing an item in the list, default type is div element
  • proxy-list: the container for the list of proxies, default type is ListBox
  • stage: the main element showing a single item from the list, default type is Modes

booleanAttributeValue(name, value) static method

Given a string value for a named boolean attribute, return true if the value is either: a) the empty string, or b) a case-insensitive match for the name.

This is native HTML behavior; see the MDN documentation on boolean attributes for the reasoning.

Given a null value, this return false. Given a boolean value, this return the value as is.

Parameters:

  • name: string
  • value: string|boolean|null

Defined by AttributeMarshallingMixin

canGoNext property

True if the item cursor can be moved to the next item, false if not (the current item is the last item in the list).

Type: boolean

Defined by Explorer

canGoPrevious property

True if the item cursor can be moved to the previous item, false if not (the current item is the first one in the list).

Type: boolean

Defined by Explorer

closestAvailableItemIndex(state, options) method

Look for an item which is available in the given state..

The options parameter can accept options for:

  • direction: 1 to move forward, -1 to move backward
  • index: the index to start at, defaults to state.currentIndex
  • wrap: whether to wrap around the ends of the items array, defaults to state.cursorOperationsWrap.

If an available item was found, this returns its index. If no item was found, this returns -1.

Parameters:

  • state: PlainObject
  • options: PlainObject

Returns: number

Defined by ItemsCursorMixin

contentSlot property

See contentSlot.

Defined by SlotContentMixin

currentIndex property

The index of the current item, or -1 if no item is current.

Type: number

Defined by CursorAPIMixin

currentindexchange event

Raised when the currentIndex property changes.

Defined by CursorAPIMixin

currentItem property

The current item, or null if no item is current.

Type: Element

Defined by CursorAPIMixin

currentItemRequired property

True if the list should always have a current item (if it has items).

Type: boolean

Default: false

Defined by CursorAPIMixin

cursorOperationsWrap property

True if cursor operations wrap from last to first, and vice versa.

Type: boolean

Default: false

Defined by CursorAPIMixin

defaultState property

The default state for the component. This can be extended by mixins and classes to provide additional default state.

Type: PlainObject

Defined by ReactiveMixin

getItemText(item) method

Extract the text from the given item.

The default implementation returns an item's aria-label, alt attribute, innerText, or textContent, in that order. You can override this to return the text that should be used.

Parameters:

  • item: Element

Returns: string

goFirst() method

Moves to the first item in the list.

Returns: Boolean True if the current item changed, false if not.

Defined by CursorAPIMixin

goLast() method

Move to the last item in the list.

Returns: Boolean True if the current item changed

Defined by CursorAPIMixin

goNext() method

Move to the next item in the list.

If the list has no current item, the first item will become current.

Returns: Boolean True if the current item changed

Defined by CursorAPIMixin

goPrevious() method

Moves to the previous item in the list.

If the list has no current item, the last item will become current.

Returns: Boolean True if the current item changed

Defined by CursorAPIMixin

ids property

A convenient shortcut for looking up an element by ID in the component's Shadow DOM subtree.

Example: if component's template contains a shadow element <button id="foo">, you can use the reference this[ids].foo to obtain the corresponding button in the component instance's shadow tree. The ids property is simply a shorthand for getElementById, so this[ids].foo is the same as this[shadowRoot].getElementById('foo').

Type: object

Defined by ShadowTemplateMixin

[internal.goFirst]() method

Move to the first item in the set.

Returns: Boolean True if the current item changed, false if not.

Defined by ItemsCursorMixin

[internal.goLast]() method

Move to the last item in the set.

Returns: Boolean True if the current item changed, false if not.

Defined by ItemsCursorMixin

[internal.goNext]() method

Move to the next item in the set.

If no item is current, move to the first item.

Returns: Boolean True if the current item changed, false if not.

Defined by ItemsCursorMixin

[internal.goPrevious]() method

Move to the previous item in the set.

If no item is current, move to the last item.

Returns: Boolean True if the current item changed, false if not.

Defined by ItemsCursorMixin

proxies property

The current set of proxy elements that correspond to the component's main items. If you have assigned elements to the proxy slot, this returns the collection of those elements. Otherwise, this will return a collection of default proxies generated by the component, one for each item.

Type: Array.

Defined by Explorer

proxyListOverlap property

True if the list of proxies should overlap the stage, false if not.

Type: boolean

Default: false

Defined by Explorer

proxyListPartType property

The class or tag used to create the proxy-list part - the list of selectable proxies representing the items in the list.

Type: (component class constructor)|HTMLTemplateElement|string

Default: ListBox

Defined by Explorer

proxyListPosition property

The position of the proxy list relative to the stage.

The start and end values refer to text direction: in left-to-right languages such as English, these are equivalent to left and right, respectively.

Type: 'bottom'|'end'|'left'|'right'|'start'|'top'

Default: 'start'

Defined by Explorer

proxyPartType property

The class or tag used to create the proxy parts - the default representations for the list's items.

Type: (component class constructor)|HTMLTemplateElement|string

Default: 'div'

Defined by Explorer

render(changed) method

Render the indicated changes in state to the DOM.

The default implementation of this method does nothing. Override this method in your component to update your component's host element and any shadow elements to reflect the component's new state. See the rendering example.

Be sure to call super in your method implementation so that your component's base classes and mixins have a chance to perform their own render work.

Parameters:

  • changed: ChangedFlagsdictionary of flags indicating which state members have changed since the last render

Defined by ReactiveMixin

renderChanges() method

Render any pending component changes to the DOM.

This method does nothing if the state has not changed since the last render call.

ReactiveMixin will invoke this method following a setState call; you should not need to invoke this method yourself.

This method invokes the internal render method, then invokes the rendered method.

Defined by ReactiveMixin

rendered(changed) method

Perform any work that must happen after state changes have been rendered to the DOM.

The default implementation of this method does nothing. Override this method in your component to perform work that requires the component to be fully rendered, such as setting focus on a shadow element or inspecting the computed style of an element. If such work should result in a change in component state, you can safely call setState during the rendered method.

Be sure to call super in your method implementation so that your component's base classes and mixins have a chance to perform their own post-render work.

Parameters:

  • changed: ChangedFlags

Defined by ReactiveMixin

selectedIndex property

The index of the selected item, or -1 if no item is selected.

Type: number

Defined by SingleSelectAPIMixin

selectedindexchange event

Raised when the selectedIndex property changes.

Defined by SingleSelectAPIMixin

selectedItem property

The selected item, or null if no item is selected.

Type: Element

Defined by SingleSelectAPIMixin

selectioneffectend event

This event is raised if the current stage applies a transition effect when changing the selection, and the selection effect has completed. CrossfadeStage applies such an effect, for example.

The order of events when the selectedIndex property changes is therefore: selectedindexchange (occurs immediately when the index changes), followed by selectioneffectend (occurs some time later).

Defined by Explorer

setState(changes) method

Update the component's state by merging the specified changes on top of the existing state. If the component is connected to the document, and the new state has changed, this returns a promise to asynchronously render the component. Otherwise, this returns a resolved promise.

Parameters:

  • changes: PlainObjectthe changes to apply to the element's state

Returns: Promise - resolves when the new state has been rendered

Defined by ReactiveMixin

stagePartType property

The class or tag used for the main "stage" element that shows a single item at a time.

Type: (component class constructor)|HTMLTemplateElement|string

Default: Modes

Defined by Explorer

state property

The component's current state.

The returned state object is immutable. To update it, invoke internal.setState.

It's extremely useful to be able to inspect component state while debugging. If you append ?elixdebug=true to a page's URL, then ReactiveMixin will conditionally expose a public state property that returns the component's state. You can then access the state in your browser's debug console.

Type: PlainObject

Defined by ReactiveMixin

stateEffects(state, changed) method

Ask the component whether a state with a set of recently-changed fields implies that additional second-order changes should be applied to that state to make it consistent.

This method is invoked during a call to internal.setState to give all of a component's mixins and classes a chance to respond to changes in state. If one mixin/class updates state that it controls, another mixin/class may want to respond by updating some other state member that it controls.

This method should return a dictionary of changes that should be applied to the state. If the dictionary object is not empty, the internal.setState method will apply the changes to the state, and invoke this stateEffects method again to determine whether there are any third-order effects that should be applied. This process repeats until all mixins/classes report that they have no additional changes to make.

See an example of how ReactiveMixin invokes the stateEffects to ensure state consistency.

Parameters:

  • state: PlainObjecta proposal for a new state
  • changed: ChangedFlagsthe set of fields changed in this latest proposal for the new state

Returns: PlainObject

Defined by ReactiveMixin