/ghcjs-dom

Make Document Object Model (DOM) apps that run in any browser and natively using WebKitGtk

Primary LanguageHaskell

Web Browser Bindings

The ghcjs-dom package contains bindings for most of the functions provided by modern web browsers.

Applications should use the ghcjs-dom package and the GHCJS.DOM.* modules it contains to get the best mix of portability and performance (rather than using the jsaddle-dom, ghcjs-dom-jsaddle and ghcjs-dom-jsffi directly).

The best documentation though is for the jsaddle-dom package (scroll down to find the modules with doumentation). This documentation should be accurate for ghcjs-dom apart from the module names:

  • Add ghcjs-dom to your build-depends: (not jsaddle-dom).
  • Import GHCJS.DOM.* instead of JSDOM.Custom.*, JSDOM.Generated.* or JSDOM.*.

Debug

This feature makes it easier to identify the code responsible for creating the DOM Elements. To enable it:

  • Enable the debug cabal flag for the ghcjs-dom package

  • Call GHCJS.DOM.Debug.addDebugMenu at the start of your application

To view the stack traces hold down the shift key and right click on an element. A menu listing the element selected and its parents should appear. Sub menus will show the stack frames for the createElement calls that created them.

Adding DomHasCallStack Constraint

To include more stack info add the GHCJS.DOM.DomHasCallStack constraint to functions that should show up in the stack trace. Once added the stack trace should reveal where the function was called.

When the debug flag is disabled DomHasCallStack will have no effect (it becomes ()).

Opening Source Code

When you click on a stack item the source location is written to stderr like this:

OPEN src/Reflex/Dom/Widget/Basic.hs:(166,41)-(166,71) in reflex-dom-core-0.4-inplace:Reflex.Dom.Widget.Basic

If you are running the code in Leksah's ghci mode it will open the file and select the call site (assuming the package is in the project).

Linking to Source Code on the Web

When publishing open source applications online you can enable debug mode to make it easier to navigate to the code used for different parts of your application.

The GHCJS.DOM.Debug.addDebugMenu' function is like addDebugMenu, but it also takes a function to convert a GHC.Stack.SrcLoc to a link (SrcLoc -> Maybe String). If a link is returned it is set as the href on the submenu item. It should be possible to link to github or hackage.

Generating the Bindings

Bindings are generated from webkitgtk-2.17.2 idl files using domconv-webkit.

Make sure to not use any newer webkitgtk as the more recent versions use incompatible new features.