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Hands-on with SimplyEdit: Automated attribute switching

A tool I like to use when creating websites is SimplyEdit. With SimplyEdit it is trivial to make content editable for the owner of the website. It is simply a matter of adding a <script> tag and some data attributes. (It's called SimplyEdit for a reason...)

One thing I noticed when developing with SimplyEdit, was that I kept switching API keys and storage endpoints between environments. I was manually editing the attributes of the script tag.

Being a developer, I prefer automating things to save time and avoid human error. So I created a small javascript snippet to automate this process.

Table of Contents

• TL;DR
  • Usage
  • The Snippet
• The Full Story
  • SimplyEdit data attributes
  • SimplyEdit API keys
  • Automating the process
  • The Javascript snippet
  • Minifying
  • Examples
    • The SimplyEdit Website
    • My attributes

TL;DR

If you use SimplyEdit, the snippet below will make it easier to switch API keys and/or configuration while switching between development/test/production environments.

Usage

The snippet exposes three functions:

• simply.key(key [, host]) to set an API key
• simply.set(name, value [, host]) to set any given SimplyEdit attribute.
• simply.src(value [, host]) to set the URL to load simply-edit.js.

All three of these functions allow adding a host name, to indicate that the value should only be set when on that host.

The name of the function, simply, is configurable in case there is already another piece of Javascript with the name "simply" in use.

The Snippet

<!-- SimplyEdit Loader-->
<script>
!(function(s,i,m,p,l,y){function d(a,b,c){if(c===undefined||c===s.location.host){l.setAttribute(a,b)}}
l=l||i.createElement(m);l.async=1;l.src="https://cdn.simplyedit.io/1/simply-edit.js";
y=y||i.scripts[0];y.parentNode.insertBefore(l,y);s[p]=s[p]||{key:function(a,b){
d("data-api-key",a,b)},set:function(a,b,c){d("data-simply-"+a,b,c)},src:function(a,b){d("src",a,b)}}
})(window,document,"script","simply");

simply.key('my-awesome-api-key');
simply.set('endpoint', '/');

</script>
<!-- End SimplyEdit Loader-->

The Full Story

SimplyEdit data attributes

The script tag, beside pointing the src to the simply-edit.js file, also needs to contain an api-key. Depending on how SimplyEdit is used, other attributes can also be set to configure SimplyEdit.

For instance, the script tag from the simplyedit.io website looks like this:

<script src="//cdn.simplyedit.io/1/simply-edit.js"
    data-api-key="ba1a14669981509ed5012533e8a54bf9"
    data-simply-endpoint="/"
    data-simply-files="/files/"
    data-simply-images="/img/"
    data-simply-settings="myCustomSettings"
></script>

SimplyEdit Launched version 1.0 in October 2016 but I was lucky enough to be the first registrant when SimplyEdit went into Beta back in November 2015. This earned me a vanity key to use with their API.

When on a development environment, I tend to use so called canary (early release) version instead of the stable release.

As my website is hosted using Github Pages, I also need to add a custom endpoint where SimplyEdit can store my data.

Putting all of this together, my script tag looks like this:

<script src="https://canary.simplyedit.io/1/simply-edit.js"
    data-api-key="potherca"
    data-simply-endpoint="https://github.com/Potherca/potherca.github.io/"
></script>

SimplyEdit API keys

Although a commercial license is required for use in production, SimplyEdit is graceful enough to offer development API keys for free. These are:

• codepen for on https://codepen.io/
• github for https://github.io/ sub-domains
• heroku for https://herokuapp.com sub-domains
• localhost for on http://localhost/

Besides being very open to adding more development keys, they also off a 30 day free trial.

Automating the process

What I tended to do, when I switched environments or development machines (desktop, laptop, chromebook, tablet) is change the API key, as each machine had a different URL on which development took place.

Depending on the phase the project was in (concept, develop, test, acceptance, production), I also tended to change the storage URL. I really didn't want to accidentally mess up the content in production when testing things.

So I created a small javascript snippet to automate this process.

The Javascript snippet

After some tweaking, the snippet ended up like this:

(function createSimplyEditScriptTag(window, document, elementName, functionName, element, siblingElement) {

  function setAttribute(p_sName, p_sValue, p_sHost) {
    if (p_sHost === undefined || p_sHost === window.location.host) {
      element.setAttribute(p_sName, p_sValue);
    }
  }

  element = element || document.createElement(elementName);
  element.async = 1;
  element.src = 'https://cdn.simplyedit.io/1/simply-edit.js';

  siblingElement = siblingElement || document.scripts[0];
  siblingElement.parentNode.insertBefore(element, siblingElement);

  window[functionName] = window[functionName] || {
    key: function (p_sKey, p_sHost) {
      setAttribute('data-api-key', p_sKey, p_sHost);
    },
    set: function (p_sName, p_sValue, p_sHost) {
      setAttribute('data-simply-' + p_sName, p_sValue, p_sHost);
    },
    src: function (p_sValue, p_sHost) {
      setAttribute('src', p_sValue, p_sHost);
    }
  };
})(window, document, 'script', 'simply');

Although the code should be simple enough to understand, adding 25 lines of JS code does not exactly feel "lightweight".

Minifying

Taking a cue from Google's Analytics tracking snippet (and Mathias Bynens optimizations of the snippet), I decided to minify the code.

The final result is this:

!(function(s,i,m,p,l,y){function d(a,b,c){if(c===undefined||c===s.location.host){l.setAttribute(a,b)}}
l=l||i.createElement(m);l.async=1;l.src="https://cdn.simplyedit.io/1/simply-edit.js";
y=y||i.scripts[0];y.parentNode.insertBefore(l,y);s[p]=s[p]||{key:function(a,b){
d("data-api-key",a,b)},set:function(a,b,c){d("data-simply-"+a,b,c)},src:function(a,b){d("src",a,b)}}
})(window,document,"script","simply");

The functionality is exactly the same only a lot less readable. It is also lot shorter. Pasting a mere 5 lines feels a lot more lightweight.

Examples

The SimplyEdit Website

For an example, take the data atributes from the SimplyEdit website. The snippet with those attributes would look like this:

<!-- SimplyEdit Loader-->
<script>
!(function(s,i,m,p,l,y){function d(a,b,c){if(c===undefined||c===s.location.host){l.setAttribute(a,b)}}
l=l||i.createElement(m);l.async=1;l.src="https://cdn.simplyedit.io/1/simply-edit.js";
y=y||i.scripts[0];y.parentNode.insertBefore(l,y);s[p]=s[p]||{key:function(a,b){
d("data-api-key",a,b)},set:function(a,b,c){d("data-simply-"+a,b,c)},src:function(a,b){d("src",a,b)}}
})(window,document,"script","simply");

simply.key('ba1a14669981509ed5012533e8a54bf9');
simply.set('endpoint', '/');
simply.set('files', '/files/');
simply.set('images', '/img/');
simply.set('settings', 'myCustomSettings');

</script>
<!-- End SimplyEdit Loader-->

The attributes are all rather straightforward. As no host switching is used, it isn't really sensible to use the snippet, but merely using it as an example to compare with the tag at the start of this article seemed sensible enough :-)

My attributes

For my attributes I would add some extra settings for use an various different hosts. Putting it together it would look like this:

<!-- SimplyEdit Loader-->
<script>
!(function(s,i,m,p,l,y){function d(a,b,c){if(c===undefined||c===s.location.host){l.setAttribute(a,b)}}
l=l||i.createElement(m);l.async=1;l.src="https://cdn.simplyedit.io/1/simply-edit.js";
y=y||i.scripts[0];y.parentNode.insertBefore(l,y);s[p]=s[p]||{key:function(a,b){
d("data-api-key",a,b)},set:function(a,b,c){d("data-simply-"+a,b,c)},src:function(a,b){d("src",a,b)}}
})(window,document,"script","simply");

/* My API key also works on localhost */
simply.key('potherca');
/* Use github to run a testing environment */
simply.key('github', 'potherca.github.io');
/* Use Heroku to run an acceptance environment */
simply.key('heroku', 'potherca.herokuapp.com');

/* Production data is stored on Github */
simply.set('endpoint', 'https://github.com/Potherca/potherca.github.io/');
/* When developing on Cloud9 (https://c9.io/) data is stored elsewhere */
simply.set('endpoint', '/storage/', 'website-potherca.c9users.io');
/* On a development environment, use the canary build */
simply.src('https://canary.simplyedit.io/1/simply-edit.js', 'localhost');
simply.src('https://canary.simplyedit.io/1/simply-edit.js', 'website-potherca.c9users.io');
</script>
<!-- End SimplyEdit Loader-->