jQuery cookieJar

Dan G. Switzer, II wrote here pointing out there are some important things to be taken into consideration while using cookies and this plugin.

1) Cookies are sent with each request header.
2) The total Cookie size per domain is generally 4K (which is per the spec http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2109.txt.) This is not a per Cookie limit, but a total name-value pair.

Introduction

I’m writing a tablesorter 2.0 plugin which I will release here shortly, along with tutorial. The plugin allows the sort order of the table to be stored in a cookie, which is then restored upon a table of the same id loading.

I had the need to store multiple values in a single cookie, it would be crazy to store each tables value in a separate cookie. So I started looking for a solution and couldn’t really find a easy one to use, and nothing for jQuery but cookie which can only store a single value in cookies. Ajaxian revealed that CookieJar: JSON Cookies by Lalit Patel existed a great idea of storing a JSON encoded object as the cookie value. It seems that this has already been implemented into Mootools. I suddenly felt the need to create a jQuery plugin.

Requirements

Compatibility

So far the plugin has been tested in windows using the following browsers.

Usage

Javascript - Simple set, get

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var myCookieJar = $.cookieJar('myCookieJar');
myCookieJar.set('test1', 'hello world');
alert(myCookieJar.get('test1'));

Javascript - Chained set, get

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$.cookieJar('myCookieJar').set('test1', 'hello world');
alert($.cookieJar('myCookieJar').get('test1'));

Javascript - Larger Example

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jQuery(function($) {
    // load the cookieJar into an object
    var accessCookie = $.cookieJar('accessInfo');
 
    // get the name from the cookieJar
    var name = accessCookie.get('name');
 
    // check that the name is defined
    if (typeof name == 'undefined') {
        // name was undefined, prompt for a name
        var name = prompt('Your name please');
        // store the name in the cookieJar
        accessCookie.set('name', name);
    }
 
    // show the name from the cookieJar on in tag with
    // id access-name
    $('#access-name').text(accessCookie.get('name'));
 
    // get the accessLog from the cookieJar
    var accessLog = accessCookie.get('accessLog');
 
    // check the that accessLog is an Array object
    if (typeof accessLog != 'object' || accessLog.constructor != Array) {
        // accessLog wasn't an Array object, set it as an Arrray object
        var accessLog = [];
    }
 
    // add the current date as a string to the begining
    // of the accessLog Array
    accessLog.unshift(new Date().toString());
 
    // store the accessLog Array in the cookieJar
    accessCookie.set('accessLog', accessLog);
 
    // loop though all the elements in the Array object accessLog
    $.each(accessLog, function(index, value) {
        // append the value to the unordered list
        $('#access-log ul').append('
	<li>'+value+'</li>
');
    });
 
    // show the cookieJar JSON encoded string
    $('#cookie-contents').text(accessCookie.toString());
});

Documentation

You’ll find most of the code documented.
But here is an outline of the methods.

cookieJar.construct(name, [object options) object
Not usually directly called, just use "var myCookieJar = jQuery.cookieJar('name', myOptions)"
options object
bool debug
To show debug logging, default false
bool cacheCookie
To not reload the cookie on each get, default true.
string cookiePrefix
Stops the name of cookieJars clashing with any other cookies, default 'jqCookieJar_'
object cookie
Any options that you want to pass to the cookie plugin, default { path: '/', expires: 365 }
cookieJar.set(string name, value) bool
Sets a value in the cookie jar using a name to identify it
cookieJar.get(string name) mixed
Gets a value from the cookie jar using a name to identify it
cookieJar.remove([string name]) bool
Removes a value from the cookie jar using a name to identify it
No name will clear the cookie jar of all values
cookieJar.setFromObject(object object) bool
Uses the object as the set of values to store in the cookie jar
cookieJar.toObject() object
Returns the contents of the cookie jar as an object
cookieJar.toString() string
Returns the contents of the cookie jar as a JSON encoded string
cookieJar.destroy() bool
Removes the cookie containing the cookie jar from the server

Note:
The cookieJar is loaded and cached upon construct. Once the cookie jar is loaded it doesn’t reread the cookie again. This can be disabled via the options see cacheCookie.

Downloads

jquery.cookiejar.example.html
jquery.cookiejar.js (6.54 KB)
jquery.cookiejar.pack.js (2.06 KB)

jquery.json.js
jquery.cookie.js

August 11, 2007 | Filed Under cookieJar, jQuery, javascript | 10 Comments 

jQuery Disable Text Select Plugin

Introduction

While making html elements dragable and using them as clickable areas I noticed some little annoyances, mainly the area being selected. This occurs if the user happends to double click, or if the user clicks some element to expand an item then quickly clicking it again to collapse it. The text would become selected. I personally found this very annoying.

So I’ve written a pretty basic jQuery plugin to help with the problem.

Requirements

Compatibility

So far the plugin has been tested in windows using the following browsers.

Usage

HTML

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<p class="disableSelection">
    this text can't be selected.

Javascript

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$(function() {
    $('.disableSelection').disableTextSelect();
});

Downloads

jquery-disable.text.select.example.htm
jquery.disable.text.select.js (1.16 KB)
jquery.disable.text.select.pack.js (1.07 KB)

July 14, 2007 | Filed Under disableTextSelect, jQuery, javascript | 8 Comments 

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