New state: "hold"

[sgulseth]

Hi,

we want to introduce a new state integer, "hold". This is meant to be used to halt/pause rendering of an container, for example to lazy load ads when the user scrolls.

If we set the frame state to '40' on queue host will think it is resolved. When we want to render it we can then set the state to '0' again. This solution does not require additional code, just a reserved state-integer which is higher than resolved.

[gregersrygg]

What is the benefit of introducing "hold" instead of waiting to trigger render() until the banner should render?
We should also think of ways to solve this as a plugin. Not sure it's possible with todays architecture.

[sgulseth]

We have written a lazyload plugin, https://gist.github.com/sgulseth/d94a7eb26ed40ba48d85.
With this approach the plugin is plug-and-play.

[gregersrygg]

Nice :) So you don't need "hold" anymore?

It works fine to call window.gardr.render(item.name); from a plugin, but I think garðr should have a way plugins can call render on an item without accessing window.gardr.

This almost sounds like a different kind of plugins than those we've made so far, but it's hard to see a new pattern yet. The others listen for events and do actions based on those, but this one needs to send a command to host. Any ideas? Have you come across other plugins that need host or ext to do something?

[sgulseth]

I don't "need" hold, but this plugin exploits the iframe isActive(https://github.com/gardr/host/blob/master/lib/state.js#L69-L71). The method checks for if state is an int larger than 10 then return true. and in the manager render-method(https://github.com/gardr/host/blob/master/lib/manager.js#L299-L305) it only render if isActive returns false.

So as it is today, it will work, but it would be great if we could reserve the "hold" state for further updates, so we don't introduce any bugs if you suddenly changes the behaviour. The lazyloading of ads will be one of the core functionality in the ad loading for both VG and E24.

[sveisvei]

@sgulseth What would this change do, add pause() and resume() methods?

[sgulseth]

@sveisvei yes, add an state which pauses the rendering of the ad

[sveisvei]

One issue we would have to solve if introducing pause and resume, is renderAll render-priority will need to account to pause.