Feature request: Provide API to trigger selection of HTML elements in vorlon

[sjoerd222888]

Provide an API function where I can trigger selection of elements in the vorlon DOM tree. So that I could create my own debug tools where I can build a feature like right-click/inspect or ctrl-mouse click or whatever I want but the tool can then call a vorlon API function that triggers the selection.

the idea originates from this other issue: https://github.com/MicrosoftDX/Vorlonjs/issues/183

This would not be directly intrusive. With this API everybody could build his own debug feature. A tool like a picker function could be built on top of this.

What are your thoughts?

[etiennemargraff]

Hello,

We need to talk a bit about this :)

[deltakosh]

Just to better understand, this API would be on the client side, correct?

[sjoerd222888]

Yes. Questions are how the API should look like exactly. I guess I should be able to pass the a reference to the DOM element directly (I mean the JavaScript representative of the DOM node).

What I could do with this API:

• Add a new context menu entry such that I can do right-click/inspect element
• Create a special debug mode where I can just click on DOM nodes and they get automatically selected in vorlon
• Automatically selected DOM nodes of the element I am currently editing in a CMS system in vorlon? (Do not know if this makes sense/is interesting)

There are a lot of things that can be done with this and regarding the other feature request the consumer of the API can decide how intrusive it should be.

[etiennemargraff]

GLeborgne is currently implementing a way to select an element on the client side and be directed to the corresponding element in the dom Explorer. Will this help you ?

[sjoerd222888]

If I understand it correctly and I can use this to select element in the DOM Explorer, then yes.

[gleborgne]

You understand correctly. About using Vorlon intrusively as an API, You could actually do it today. If You use Object explorer you must see a "VORLON" object. Plugins instances are stored in VORLON.Core._clientPlugins. You could look at plugins code to see how to hookup

[sjoerd222888]

But you are working on a more clean solution to do this, right?

[gleborgne]

In the next version you will have the inspect button and the plugin will have a clean "selectElementInDashboard" function but for now, you will have to call it like explained above. We will discuss internally about exposing an API for the following release.