[Cosmo-dev] Getting a handle on specific UI elements

[Bobby Rullo]

On Dec 12, 2006, at 11:01 AM, Matthew Eernisse wrote:

>
>> Nope, it's not random at all, it's the logical path to the element  
>> on the screen.
>>> It sounds like y'all are talking about some kind of logical  
>>> namespace that would also need to be kept up-to-date as the UI  
>>> code evolves -- otherwise you eventually end up with paths to UI  
>>> elements that don't really reflect what's going on in the actual  
>>> UI anymore.
>> Yes
>
> Cool, so it seems like you understand what I'm saying here.  
> Anything but totally random strings of text kept in a spreadsheet  
> or something would have to be maintained to keep in sync with the  
> code. We would have to inform QA of those changes so they can keep  
> their tests up to date.
>

We would have to update QA no matter what (under your scheme or mine)  
to tell them that there is a new UI element and where to find it. But  
in my scheme that string would not change even if there were re- 
factorings, and in your scheme it would.

> So given that those requirements are pretty much identical to those  
> for the existing JS namespace, I'm kind of dubious about the value  
> of coming up with a completely separate namespacing scheme just for  
> DOM-node ids.
>


> It seems like the only tangible benefit is that it's decoupled from  
> the JS namespace, and I wonder if that's a big enough benefit to  
> warrant the extra overhead.
>

There's that benefit, and the fact that my scheme requires no coding.

Bobby