Creating a simple JavaScript class with jQuery

Question

I'm trying to understand jQuery classes but it is not going very well.

My goal is to use a class this way (or to learn a better way to do it):

var player = new Player($("playerElement"));
player.InitEvents();

Using other people's examples, this is what I tried:

$.Player = function ($) {

};

$.Player.prototype.InitEvents = function () {

    $(this).keypress(function (e) {
        var key = e.which;
        if (key == 100) {
            MoveRight();
        }
        if (key == 97) {
            MoveLeft();
        }
    });
};

$.Player.prototype.MoveRight = function () {
    $(this).css("right", this.playerX += 10);
}

$.Player.prototype.MoveLeft = function () {
    $(this).css("right", this.playerX -= 10);
}

$.Player.defaultOptions = {
    playerX: 0,
    playerY: 0
};

The end goal is to have a character moving on the screen left and right using the keyboard letters A and D.

I have a feeling that I'm doing something very wrong with this "class" but I'm not sure why.

(sorry for my English)

Answer 1

An important issue is that you have to assign the passed jQuery object/element to a this.element - or another this.propertyName - so you can access it later inside the instance's methods.

You also cannot call MoveRight()/MoveLeft() directly like that because those functions are not defined up in the scope chain, but rather in the prototype of your instance's Constructor, hence you need a reference to the instance itself to call these.

Updated and commented code below:

(function ($) { //an IIFE so safely alias jQuery to $
    $.Player = function (element) { //renamed arg for readability

        //stores the passed element as a property of the created instance.
        //This way we can access it later
        this.element = (element instanceof $) ? element : $(element);
        //instanceof is an extremely simple method to handle passed jQuery objects,
        //DOM elements and selector strings.
        //This one doesn't check if the passed element is valid
        //nor if a passed selector string matches any elements.
    };

    //assigning an object literal to the prototype is a shorter syntax
    //than assigning one property at a time
    $.Player.prototype = {
        InitEvents: function () {
            //`this` references the instance object inside of an instace's method,
            //however `this` is set to reference a DOM element inside jQuery event
            //handler functions' scope. So we take advantage of JS's lexical scope
            //and assign the `this` reference to another variable that we can access
            //inside the jQuery handlers
            var that = this;
            //I'm using `document` instead of `this` so it will catch arrow keys
            //on the whole document and not just when the element is focused.
            //Also, Firefox doesn't fire the keypress event for non-printable
            //characters so we use a keydown handler
            $(document).keydown(function (e) {
                var key = e.which;
                if (key == 39) {
                    that.moveRight();
                } else if (key == 37) {
                    that.moveLeft();
                }
            });

            this.element.css({
                //either absolute or relative position is necessary 
                //for the `left` property to have effect
                position: 'absolute',
                left: $.Player.defaultOptions.playerX
            });
        },
        //renamed your method to start with lowercase, convention is to use
        //Capitalized names for instanceables only
        moveRight: function () {
            this.element.css("left", '+=' + 10);
        },
        moveLeft: function () {
            this.element.css("left", '-=' + 10);
        }
    };


    $.Player.defaultOptions = {
        playerX: 0,
        playerY: 0
    };

}(jQuery));

//so you can use it as:
var player = new $.Player($("#playerElement"));
player.InitEvents();

Fiddle

Also note that JavaScript does not have actual "classes" (at least not until ES6 gets implemented) nor Methods (which by definition are associated exclusively to Classes), but rather Constructors which provide a sweet syntax that resembles classes. Here's an awesome article written by TJ Crowder regarding JS's "fake" methods, it is a little advanced but everyone should be able to learn something new from reading it:
http://blog.niftysnippets.org/2008/03/mythical-methods.html