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About lazyBlock

lazyBlock is a proof-of-concept to show how content can be conditionally loaded in responsive designs without relying on AJAX to fetch that content. Content is included in the original mark-up but is placed within <script> tags with the type text/html. Based on user action or screen width, the content can then be moved from the <script> tag and then injected into the DOM by lazyBlock.

v2 Changes

Only a few changes for v2:

  • now uses <script> tag rather than comments to "hide" content. it provides for a hair better performance.
  • better support for older versions of IE
  • slightly different syntax as I get better with JS
  • can toggle multiple elements from one call

How is this Different from display: none?

Any mark-up contained within an element that has been set to display: none will still be parsed by the browser. For example, if your mark-up contains images the browser will download them. For performance reasons you may not want this to happen. lazyBlock helps developers avoid those extra downloads.

Demo

There is a small demo that uses code from Brad Frost's "Anatomy of a Mobile First RWD" example. You should be able to preview the following functionality:

  • toggle the shirt panel using a link
  • content updated in another part of the DOM based on event listeners (e.g. "hide/show shirts" copy)
  • screens larger than 500px automatically load the shirt panel
  • if the browser window is resized the panel should open & close at 500px

Simply inspect the page to see what's going on.

Browser Support

lazyBlock appears to work well across all browsers and, as of v2.0, it supports older versions of IE.

Usage

Setting up lazyBlock is pretty simple.

The Mark-up

The key to setting up your mark-up to work with lazyBlock is to make sure that the IDs for your clickable element, your content source element, and content target element share the same base and follow the convention [shared-base]-link, [shared-base]-source, and [shared-base]-target respectively. lazyBlock will then work auto-magically. In the demo you can see that the shared base is "related-shirts."

The clickable element from the demo:

<a id="related-shirts-link">
	<h2>Related Shirts (<span id="related-shirts-status">show shirts</span>)</h2>
</a>

The content target element from the demo:

<div role="tabpanel" id="related-shirts-panel" style="display: none;"></div>

The content source element from the demo:

<script id="related-shirts-source" type="text/html">
	<ul>
		<li><a href="#"><img src="images/related_1.jpg" alt="Product Name" /></a></li>
		<li><a href="#"><img src="images/related_2.jpg" alt="Product Name" /></a></li>
		<li><a href="#"><img src="images/related_3.jpg" alt="Product Name" /></a></li>
		<li><a href="#"><img src="images/related_4.jpg" alt="Product Name" /></a></li>
		<li><a href="#"><img src="images/related_5.jpg" alt="Product Name" /></a></li>
		<li><a href="#"><img src="images/related_6.jpg" alt="Product Name" /></a></li>
	</ul>
</script>

The JavaScript

lazyBlock works by being attached to events like onclick. This is the onclick code from the demo that toggles the "related-shirts-panel" div open and closed:

// add an onclick handler to toggle the example
document.getElementById("related-shirts-link").onclick = function() { lB.getById("related-shirts-link").toggle(); };

It is, admittedly, a little verbose.

lazyBlock also supports its own custom events. They are: onLBStart, onLBShow, onLBHide, and onLBComplete. lazyBlock comes with a simple function to allow you to quickly bind your code to elements. This demo code updates the "related-shirts-status" span with wording to signify the change in action for the link when the "related-shirts-target" div is shown and hidden.

// run code at certain points in the running of the toggle
// usage: lb.bind(element ID, event name, code to run)
lB.getById("related-shirts-link").bind("onLBShow",function() { document.getElementById("related-shirts-status").innerHTML = "hide shirts"; } );
lB.getById("related-shirts-link").bind("onLBHide",function() { document.getElementById("related-shirts-status").innerHTML = "show shirts"; } );

You can also have the panel open based on screen width so you can integrate this functionality with a responsive design.

Toggling Multiple Elements from One Click

To toggle multiple elements simply include their shared base in an array when making the .toggle() call. For example:

lB.getById("related-shirts-link").toggle(["foo","spoon"]);

Other Ways to "Hide" Content from Browser Parser

<script> tags aren't the only way to hide content from the browser parser. You could also put content within:

  • JavaScript strings - I don't think this is really maintainable
  • <noscript> tags - Would be my top choice if Android 2.x allowed access to its contents.
  • old school comment tags - the method of choice for lazyBlock v1.0.

I'm sure there are other methods out there.