webapp_client: Client side for Chimera 2 web application

Overview

The Chimera2 Web Application uses several JavaScript libraries, including public ones such as jQuery and jQuery UI as well as custom libraries for Session Management and Applet Management.

Session Management

The session management library is divided into two parts:

• an HTML layer that provides user interface elements for managing the current active session information, and
• an AJAX layer that interacts with the server without maintaining any state information.

The public API consistents of attributes of one object:

$c2_session

HTML Layer

The HTML layer API is accessible via $c2_session.

$c2_session.ui_init(url)

Arguments:

• url (string) – URL to the location of Chimera 2 server.

Returns:

nothing.

Initialize HTML and AJAX layers. The AJAX layer is initialized with a call to init(). To create user interface widgets, ui_init() looks for an HTML element with id c2_session. A jQuery button is inserted at the start of this element that both displays the name of the current active session and, when clicked, brings up a session selection dialog.

$c2_session.user

Web account used to contact server.

$c2_session.session

Name of current active session.

$c2_session.password

Password for current active session.

$c2_session.session_list

Array of sessions for current user. Each session is an object with attributes name and access (see list_sessions()).

AJAX Layer

The AJAX layer API is accessible via $c2_session.server.

$c2_session.server.init(url)

Arguments:

• url (string) – URL to the location of Chimera 2 server.

Returns:

nothing.

Initialize AJAX layer. Must be called prior to using other functions.

$c2_session.server.list_sessions()

Returns:jQuery API’s ajax jqXHR object.

Send an AJAX request for session information. The return value is the object returned by jQuery’s jQuery API’s getJSON function, and is used to invoke callbacks and for adding error handling functionality. If the request is successful, the done method’s data argument has the session data, which is of the form:

[ "user_name", [
    { name: "session_name", access: "access_time" },
    { name: "session_name_2", access: "access_time_2" },
    ...
]]

and describes the list of sessions associated with a web account, where:

• user_name is the web login used to access the server,
• session_name is the name of a session, and
• access_time is the last access time associated with the session (as a string formatted by the ctime() function).

$c2_session.server.create_session(session_name, password)

Arguments:

• session_name (string) – Name of session to be created.
• password (string) – Name of password for session to be created.

Returns:

jQuery API’s ajax jqXHR object.

Send an AJAX request to create a new session. The return value is the object returned by jQuery API’s get function, and is used to invoke callbacks and for adding error handling functionality. If the request is successful, the done method’s data argument is empty.

$c2_session.server.delete_session(session_name, password)

Arguments:

• session_name (string) – Name of session to be created.
• password (string) – Name of password for session to be created.

Returns:

jQuery API’s ajax jqXHR object.

Send an AJAX request to delete an existing session. The return value is the object returned by jQuery API’s get function, and is used to invoke callbacks and for adding error handling functionality. If the request is successful, the done method’s data argument is empty.

$c2_session.server.url

Server URL set by init() function.

Applet Management

TODO