Architectural considerations for including RequireJS

Including RequireJS in CTools required several architectural changes, such as using Asynchronous Module Definition (AMD) for JavaScript modules.

Specifically, the following changes were made:

The Dashboards singleton no longer exists.

Most of the methods called in Dashboards are available elsewhere. If you are running code in the component context (meaning that this refers to a component), like in preExecution, postExecution and postFetch, most methods will be available in the this.dashboard. Some exceptions exist:

• The logging methods were migrated to a separate AMD module with ID cdf/Logger, so Dashboards.log has been replaced with Logger.log.

• Some static methods were migrated to a separate AMD module with ID cdf/dashboard/Utils, such that

  • Dashboards.escapeHtml is now Utils.escapeHtml.

  • Dashboards.getQueryParameter is now Utils.getQueryParameter.

  • Dashboards.objectToPropertiesArray is now Utils.objectToPropertiesArray.

  • Dashboards.propertiesArrayToObject is now Utils.propertiesArrayToObject.

Parameters and components no longer create objects in the global scope.

Instead, components and parameters are internal to the dashboard. If you want to get to a component, you need to use the getComponent method in the dashboardobject. For parameters, always use the getParameter method.

When debugging during dashboard development, follow the same guideline. If you have a component called foo, then the object render_foo is no longer accessible from the console. Instead, call dashboard.getComponent ("render_foo") to get to that component. When CDE renders, it creates a dashboard object in the global scope. It is recommended that you use the dashboard object to access the dashboard internals you need. You can view further information on RequireJS in CTools Dashboards.