583414 - separate Group into "model" and "view"

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(Firefox Graveyard :: Panorama, defect, P3)

Description

[Ian Gilman [:iangilman]]

Currently the Tab Candy Group objects take care of both the notion of groups (the model) and also their visual display in the Tab Candy UI (the view). As it turns out, we're going to need the model in a number of places where we don't want the overhead of the view (such as managing tabs in the tab bar, which you can think of as another view on the same model).

I propose we split groups.js into 2 files: groups.js and groupitems.js. groups.js will contain Group and Groups objects, which will handle the model, and groupitems.js will contain GroupItem and GroupItems, which will handle the view.

The model should depend on as little of the Tab Candy code as possible, and it should relate to xul:tabs as needed, not TabItems. A Group object shouldn't communicate directly with a GroupItem, but instead send out events (or use Subscribable). 

GroupItem objects should keep a reference to the Group they represent, make changes to the Group as needed, and respond to events from the Group.

The eventual goal should be groups.js to be a js module independent of any window, but for now I think it should be a regular js file attached to the Tab Candy UI (one step at a time).

Comment 1

[Ian Gilman [:iangilman]]

Mitcho, perhaps you can take a whack at this?

Comment 2

[Michael Yoshitaka Erlewine [:mitcho]]

(In reply to comment #1)
> Mitcho, perhaps you can take a whack at this?

On it like a bonnet.

Comment 3

[Aza Raskin [:aza]]

Technically, should you be in a bonnet?

Comment 4

[Michael Yoshitaka Erlewine [:mitcho]]

Aza, Ian: Keeping everything straight in groups.js as I try to do this has turned out to be quite error-prone, and I haven't had much success. After a few false starts over a few hours, I'm going to let go of this for the time being. I'm happy to help out on this task, but I'd feel more comfortable going over what exactly the division of labor between Group and GroupItem will be, and what the external interface will be (will the UI create Group's or GroupItem's?) with Ian first.

If you guys want to see some of the diffs of the work I tried to do, I do have them for posterity.

Comment 5

[Ian Gilman [:iangilman]]

I'll take a whack at this.

Comment 6

[Ian Gilman [:iangilman]]

baby steps:

http://hg.mozilla.org/users/edward.lee_engineering.uiuc.edu/tabcandy-central/rev/eba34516b87d

http://hg.mozilla.org/users/edward.lee_engineering.uiuc.edu/tabcandy-central/rev/a805e93769f8

Comment 7

[(no longer active)]

Mass moving all Tab Candy bugs from Mozilla Labs to Firefox::Tab Candy.  Filter the bugmail spam with "tabcandymassmove".

Comment 8

[Michael Yoshitaka Erlewine [:mitcho]]

Punting to the future. This is most likely appropriate to do when revisiting bug 578512.

Comment 9

[Ian Gilman [:iangilman]]

Removing myself from this bug.  Time will tell if it's something we even still want to do.

Comment 10

[Tim Taubert [:ttaubert] (inactive)]

I don't think we still want this.