Coding In Paradise

I'm starting to port AMASS over to Dojo, including increasing the range and sophistication of the storage options available. Here's a rough outline of the design I have so far before I launch into coding; if you have any ideas or ways to make the API better feel free to contact me.

Basicly, on startup, a dojo.storage.manager figures out the best possible permanent storage system based on the platform's capabilities and initializes it. For example, if the user has Flash and we are on a browser, we use the FlashStorageProvider; if we don't have Flash and we are on IE, we use the IEStorageProvider which uses proprietary features of IE to get up to 60K of permanent storage. If we are being run as a Firefox extension, then we use the XPCOMStorageProvider, etc. All of these providers expose a single, consistent API that basicly makes storage look like a hashtable, with get and put methods. This means programmers can have permanent storage for their apps, independent of the platform's underlying capabilities.

Users can also manually grab other kinds of storage providers, such as a FormStorageProvider which can save session information using the autosave capability of web forms. This is useful for caching runtime information, for example. It's also useful in various kinds of exotic hacks. We also provide the same hashtable abstraction to cookies, using a CookieStorageProvider.

Here's my current design outline I'm working from:

dojo.storage - the best available permanent storage
dojo.storage.cookies - hashtable interface to cookies


dojo.storage.browser (also exposes
               dojo.storage.cookies) - browser.js
 FlashStorageProvider - Uses hidden flash applet
 IEStorageProvider - Uses IE features for storage
 FormStorageProvider - Uses a hidden form
                       field for storage
 CookieStorageProvider - Uses cookies for storage
 WhatWGStorageProvider - Uses a browser-provided
                         storage system as
                         defined by the WHAT
                         Working Group;
                         placeholder until
                         their work is done

dojo.storage.wsh - wsh.js
 ActiveXStorageProvider - Uses ActiveX for storage

dojo.storage.rhino - rhino.js
 JavaStorageProvider - Uses LiveConnect against
                       Java for storage

dojo.storage.xpcom - xpcom.js
 XPCOMStorageProvider - Uses XPCOM components
                        for storage

dojo.storage:

Constants that are returned from various operations:

dojo.storage.SUCCESS
dojo.storage.FAILED
dojo.storage.PENDING

dojo.storage.SIZE_NOT_AVAILABLE
dojo.storage.SIZE_NO_LIMIT

dojo.storage.manager - singleton
-------------------

Initializes the storage systems and figures out
the best available storage options on this platform

/** Instructs the storageManager to use
   the given storageClass for all storage requests.
  
   Example:
  
   dojo.storage.setProvider(
          dojo.storage.browser.IEStorageProvider)
*/
setProvider(storageClass)



AbstractStorageProvider
-----------------------

The base class for all storage providers

/** Puts a key and value into this storage system.

   @param key A string key to use when retrieving
          this value in the future.
   @param value A value to store; this can be
          any JavaScript type.
   @param resultsHandler A callback function
          that will receive two arguments.
          The first argument is one of three
          values: dojo.storage.SUCCESS,
          dojo.storage.FAILED, or
          dojo.storage.PENDING; these values
          determine how the put request went.
          In some storage systems users can deny
          a storage request, resulting in a
          dojo.storage.FAILED, while in
          other storage systems a storage
          request must wait for user approval,
          resulting in a dojo.storage.PENDING
          status until the request
          is either approved or denied,
          resulting in another call back
          with dojo.storage.SUCCESS.
  
   The second argument in the call back is an
   optional message that details possible error
   messages that might have occurred during
   the storage process.
  
   Example:
     var resultsHandler = function(status, message) {
       alert("status="+status+", message="+message);
     };
     dojo.storage.put("test", "hello world",
                      resultsHandler);
*/
put(key, value, resultsHandler)

/** Gets the value with the given key. Returns null
   if this key is not in the storage system.

   @param key A string key to get the value of.
   @returns Returns any JavaScript object type;
   null if the key is not
   present. */
get(key)

/** Determines whether the storage has the given
   key.

     @returns Whether this key is
              present or not. */
hasKey(key)

/** Enumerates all of the available keys in
   this storage system.

   @returns Array of string keys in this
            storage system.
*/
getKeys()

/** Completely clears this storage system of all
   of it's values and keys. */
clear()

/** Returns whether this storage provider's
   values are persisted when this platform
   is shutdown.

   @returns True or false whether this
   storage is permanent. */
isPermanent()

/** Returns whether this storage provider is
   supported on this platform.

   @returns True or false if this storage
   provider is supported.
*/
isSupported()

/** The maximum storage allowed by this provider.

   @returns Returns the maximum storage size
            supported by this provider, in
            thousands of bytes (i.e., if it
            returns 60 then this means that 60K
            of storage is supported).
  
            If this provider can not determine
            it's maximum size, then
            dojo.storage.SIZE_NOT_AVAILABLE is
            returned; if there is no theoretical
            limit on the amount of storage
            this provider can return, then
            dojo.storage.SIZE_NO_LIMIT is
            returned. */
getMaximumSize()

/** Determines whether this provider has a
   settings UI.

   @returns True or false if this provider has
            the ability to show a
            a settings UI to change it's
            values, change the amount of storage
            available, etc. */
hasSettingsUI()

/** If this provider has a settings UI, it is
   shown. */
showSettingsUI()
  

Now, I've just got to code this thing :)

Hi folks! It's been awhile since I've blogged. The last month I've been working with Rojo on various interesting projects and schemes; hopefully I'll be able to talk about them when they're ready. ;)

Today and tomorrow I'm going to be hacking on Dojo, moving the storage support I've done in AMASS and the other kinds of storage systems I've found in browsers into Dojo.