Is there any way to manipulate GWT pages using jQuery

Question

There exists a GWT based application (without source code), and there is a need to manipulate its date-pickers. So I thought to use jQuery to do this, but the problem is GWT changes the DOM model after each ajax call, and I don't know how to be informed of that refreshes to use the jQuery to select the elements and do my stuff.

Is it possible to use jQuery for this work? Is there a better solution to manipulate elements of a GWT page without accessing its source code?

can you post the link or code for the site? – Kresimir Pendic Feb 16 '16 at 23:07 — Kresimir Pendic, Feb 16 '16 at 23:07

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered Feb 17 '16 at 11:45

0

If you're looking for equivalent of jQuery selector ( $("p") ) GWT has DOM class dedicated for it, e.g DOM.getElementById("divID") selects element with given id.

Class provides a set of selectors, some of them: getChild(Element parent, int index) , getInnerText(Element elem), sinkEvents(Element elem, int eventBits) )

http://www.gwtproject.org/javadoc/latest/com/google/gwt/user/client/DOM.html

answered Feb 17 '16 at 11:45

Johnny

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As I said I don't have access to project's source, but I can add jquery to containing page. – Amir Pashazadeh Feb 17 '16 at 17:38
Ah,I thought you don't have access to widget source, which was my case some time ago. Sorry, my bad. – Johnny Feb 17 '16 at 17:49

score 0 · Answer 2 · edited May 23 '17 at 12:15

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how to be informed of that refreshes

you can try to hook into DOM changes. take a look at MutationObserver. one similar solution you can find here.

possible to use jQuery for this work

well, you don't have much choice :)

better solution to manipulate elements

I don't think so.

edited May 23 '17 at 12:15

Community

1
1

answered Feb 17 '16 at 13:23

hahn

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score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Feb 23 '16 at 13:12

You can't do it in deterministic way. It is because:

GWT code is obfuscated after compilation and change JS code after every new release
You cannot access function/variable in compiled JS, due to above
Loading times varies. So even if you tried to wait some time and then manipulate DOM, you may get unexpected results. You cannot rely on this approach.

The only one way to accomplish this is to expose callback function in GWT such:

public native void onDatePickerLoaded(DatePicker picker) {/*-{
    if ($wnd.onDatePickerLoadedCallback) {
        return $wnd.onDatePickerLoadedCallback(picker);
    }
}-*/;

And then you can attach jQuery + custom callback function in your HTML. I don't see any other possibility.

Is there any way to manipulate GWT pages using jQuery

3 Answers3