Custom jQuery Events

ExpressionEngine exposes some custom jQuery events to help capture interactions that are common in a content management system.

Form Interaction Event

An interaction event (interact) can be thought of as an improved change event. When bound on a form or a form element, it fires whenever the user makes changes to the form. This includes (un)checking checkboxes, changing dropdown menus, and manipulating text in a text input or textarea.

Unlike normal change events, it fires instantly on text inputs and does not require the user to change focus.

$('form').on('interact', function() {
    // I see typing!
});

Note: When bound on a form, this event will not be triggered on submission.

Window Broadcast Event

The window broadcast event can be used to communicate state between control panel windows of the same browser session. To send a message, simply trigger the event on the window element.

$(window).trigger('broadcast', 'a message');

To listen for events from other windows, bind the event listener on the window.

$(window).on('broadcast', function(message) {
  alert(message);
});

To avoid messaging conflicts, it is important that you namespace your events using jQuery’s event namespacing.

$(window).trigger('broadcast.greatAddon', { maxVolume: 11 });
$(window).on('broadcast.greatAddon', function(msg) {
  console.log(msg.maxVolume);
});

Note: The data is sent as a json encoded string and therefore can only contain javascript primitives.

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