jquery.initialize

Note from author (pie6k). I've created this lib few years ago and it was nice back then. Now you should probably not be using jQuery for things like that and go with React or something similar. Thank you. —2018-11-21
Another note (bezborodow). The Web Components suite is now widely adopted natively by most modern browsers as a standardised feature such that it can now be used efficiently (without the overhead of MutationObserver) to achieve the same objectives as this library originally intended to facilitate. —2023-05-27

jQuery.initialize

jQuery.initialize plugin is created to help maintain dynamically created elements on the page.

Synopsis

jQuery.initialize will iterate over each element that matches the selector and apply the callback function. It will then listen for any changes to the Document Object Model and apply the callback function to any new elements inserted into to the document that match the original selector.

$.initialize([selector], [callback]);

This allows developers to define an initialisation callback that is applied whenever a new element matching the selector is inserted into the DOM. It works for elements loaded via AJAX also.
Simple demo - click here

Example of use

$.initialize(".some-element", function() {
    $(this).css("color", "blue");
});

But now if new element matching .some-element selector will appear on page, it will be instantly initialised. The way new item is added is not important, you do not need to care about any callbacks etc.

$("<div/>").addClass("some-element").appendTo("body"); //new element will have blue color!

Unobserving

To cease observation of the document, you may disconnect the observer by calling disconnect() on the returned MutationObserver instance which stops it from receiving further notifications until and unless observe() is called again. . E.g.,

var obs = $.initialize([selector], [callback]); // Returns MutationObserver
obs.disconnect();

Options

target

By default, the entire document is observed for changes. This may result in poor performance. A specific node in the DOM can be observed by specifying a target:

$.initialize(".some-element", function() {
    $(this).css("color", "blue");
}, { target: document.getElementById('observe-this-element') });

Otherwise, target will default to document.documentElement.

observer

A custom MutationObserverInit may be provided. If not provided, it will default to internal configuration.

Browser Compatibility

Plugin is based on MutationObserver. It will works on IE9+ (read note below) and every modern browser.
Note: To make it work on IE9 and IE10 you'll need to add MutationObserver polyfill - like ones here:

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Performance test (thanks to @bezborodow and @liuhongbo)

Todo

- make it bower and npm compatible, add advanced performance test.

Contributors

• Adam Pietrasiak
• Damien Bezborodov
• Michael Hulse