Superior jQuery plugin template

[deadbeef84]

Here's my thoughts:

1. Ability to modify default settings It is sometimes nice to set the global defaults.

2. Ability to expose methods. A nice way of calling the someFunc() would be nice. I guess you can do it like this: $(...).data('_wTooltip').someFunc(); but using the data() seems a bit hacky.

3. Use settings from html5 data-attribute, ie data-tooltip='{"foo":"baar"}'. Not really necessary for the example plugin, but I think it could be for others. I hate it when I need initialize every instance separately just to specify it's options, when they could be specified in the markup.

4. Missing var before $settings. Just a typo I guess?

5. I think the name generate() is a bit misleading, init() or initialize() makes more sense to me.

[rduchnik]

I like your points for 1 and 2, will add those in the next iteration, constantly trying to improve this thing.

I didn't use init() because sometimes I may use init to do something else that doesn't deal with generating the plugin code, so I ended up going with generate(), maybe create() would be a better word.

[robin_reala]

Not sure you should be (ab)using data- attributes like that. They’re already a key/value pair so you markup your data as <div data-tooltip-foo="baa" data-tooltip-qux="quux">

[deadbeef84]

6. Prevention of double instantiation.

[paulirish]

A recipe like this (also a tooltip), but approved by the jQuery team and with much more explanation is available at http://docs.jquery.com/Plugins/Authoring

[rduchnik]

ya, I don't really like their method approach, they don't use prototyping.

[Rust]

Just wanted to let you know I used your boilerplate for my first jQuery plugin recently - https://github.com/indyarmy/jQuery.awesomeCloud.plugin/

Thanks a lot, it saved me a pile o'trouble :)

[AndrewHampton]

The first line of $.fn.wTooltip is

  if(typeof option === 'object')

Does anyone know where option is declared and where its value is set?

[lhorie]

It's meant to be the first argument passed to the plugin, e.g.

  $("#bla").wTooltip({foo: "bar"})

[rduchnik]

My bad, fixed it, was supposed to be here:

    $.fn.wTooltip = function(option, settings)

[emehrkay]

Crockford must be rolling over in his bed right now