Using Inheritance Patterns to Organize Large jQuery Applications - how to extend the plugin? - jquery-plugins

Question

I found this working example of Inheritance Patterns that separates business logic and framework code. I'm tempted to use it as a boilerplate, but since it is an inheritance Pattern, then how can I extend the business logic (the methods in var Speaker)?
For instance, how can I extend a walk: method into it?
/**
* Object Speaker
* An object representing a person who speaks.
*/
var Speaker = {
init: function(options, elem) {
// Mix in the passed in options with the default options
this.options = $.extend({},this.options,options);
// Save the element reference, both as a jQuery
// reference and a normal reference
this.elem = elem;
this.$elem = $(elem);
// Build the dom initial structure
this._build();
// return this so we can chain/use the bridge with less code.
return this;
},
options: {
name: "No name"
},
_build: function(){
this.$elem.html('<h1>'+this.options.name+'</h1>');
},
speak: function(msg){
// You have direct access to the associated and cached jQuery element
this.$elem.append('<p>'+msg+'</p>');
}
};
// Make sure Object.create is available in the browser (for our prototypal inheritance)
// Courtesy of Papa Crockford
// Note this is not entirely equal to native Object.create, but compatible with our use-case
if (typeof Object.create !== 'function') {
Object.create = function (o) {
function F() {} // optionally move this outside the declaration and into a closure if you need more speed.
F.prototype = o;
return new F();
};
}
$.plugin = function(name, object) {
$.fn[name] = function(options) {
// optionally, you could test if options was a string
// and use it to call a method name on the plugin instance.
return this.each(function() {
if ( ! $.data(this, name) ) {
$.data(this, name, Object.create(object).init(options, this));
}
});
};
};
// With the Speaker object, we could essentially do this:
$.plugin('speaker', Speaker);
Any ideas?

Answer 1

How about simply using JavaScript's regular prototype inheritance?
Consider this:
function Speaker(options, elem) {
this.elem = $(elem)[0];
this.options = $.extend(this.defaults, options);
this.build();
}
Speaker.prototype = {
defaults: {
name: "No name"
},
build: function () {
$('<h1>', {text: this.options.name}).appendTo(this.elem);
return this;
},
speak: function(message) {
$('<p>', {text: message}).appendTo(this.elem);
return this;
}
};
Now you can do:
var pp = new Speaker({name: "Porky Pig"}, $("<div>").appendTo("body"));
pp.speak("That's all folks!");
Speaker.prototype.walk = function (destination) {
$('<p>', {
text: this.options.name + " walks " + destination + ".",
css: { color: "red" }
}).appendTo(this.elem);
return this;
}
pp.walk("off the stage");
Runnable version:
function Speaker(options, elem) {
this.elem = $(elem)[0];
this.options = $.extend(this.defaults, options);
this.build();
}
Speaker.prototype = {
defaults: {
name: "No name"
},
build: function () {
$('<h1>', {text: this.options.name}).appendTo(this.elem);
return this;
},
speak: function(message) {
$('<p>', {text: message}).appendTo(this.elem);
return this;
}
};
var pp = new Speaker({name: "Porky Pig"}, $("<div>").appendTo("body"));
pp.speak("That's all folks!");
Speaker.prototype.walk = function (destination) {
$('<p>', {
text: this.options.name + " walks " + destination + ".",
css: { color: "red" }
}).appendTo(this.elem);
return this;
}
pp.walk("off the stage");
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