##### Open Source DOM Component

Xenotools

Search popular tech websites

by Read Write Tools Aug 31, 2020

$3

Sometimes visitors are unsatisfied with the information provided in your
document and need to further research the topic. As a convenience to your
visitors you can provide quick links to external forums that may have additional
information about the your document's main topic.

The rwt-xenotools DOM component facilitates this by
keeping a social-media style linkbar hidden at the bottom of the page until the
user needs it.

When activated, the linkbar slides over the page content, showing a collection
of icons associated with popular tech forums.

Activation may also be initiated through the component's toggleMenu method or
through its event interface.

The component has these features:

* Each third-party link is prefilled with a query value that is determined by the
document's value.
* When appropriate, some links are prefilled with a hashtag values that are
determined by the document's value.
* The Reddit link uses any value provided by the document's
value.
* The Github link uses any value provided by the document's
value.
* The linkbar has an event interface for showing and hiding itself.
* The linkbar emits a custom event to close sibling menus and dialog boxes.
* A keyboard listener is provided to allow a shortcut key to open/close the
linkbar.

#### In the wild

To see an example of this component in use, visit the BLUEPHRASE
website and press F6 "Link to Q&A forums". To understand what's going
on under the hood, use the browser's inspector to view the HTML source code and
network activity, and follow along as you read this documentation.

$3

#### Prerequisites

The rwt-xenotools DOM component works in any browser that
supports modern W3C standards. Templates are written using BLUE
PHRASE notation, which can be compiled into HTML using the free Read Write View
desktop app. It has no other prerequisites. Distribution and installation are
done with either NPM or via Github.

#### Download

npm install rwt-xenotools
	

$3

After installation, you need to add two things to your HTML page to make use of
it.

* Add a script tag to load the component's rwt-xenotools.js file:
``html

`

* Add the component tag somewhere on the page:
`html
`


#### Self identification

The linkbar's inputs are prefilled with values provided in the document's
tags. Here's an example:

`html




`

$3

#### Dialog size and position

The linkbar is positioned in a fixed location at the bottom of the viewport. Its
position and size may be overridden using CSS by defining new values for the
bottom, width and height variables.

`css
rwt-xenotools {
--bottom: 3rem;
--height: 11rem;
--width: 30rem;
--z-index: 1;
}
`

#### Dialog color scheme

The default color palette for the dialog uses a dark mode theme. You can use CSS
to override the variables' defaults:

`css
rwt-xenotools {
--color: var(--white);
--accent-color1: var(--pure-white);
--background-color: var(--nav-black);
--accent-background1: var(--pure-black);
--accent-background2: var(--medium-black);
--accent-background3: var(--light-black);
--accent-background4: var(--title-blue);
--border-color1: var(--gray);
--border-color2: var(--pure-white);
--border-color3: var(--pure-black);
}
``

$3

The component issues life-cycle events.

component-loaded

Sent when the component is fully loaded and ready to be used. As a convenience you can use the waitOnLoading() method which returns a promise that resolves when the component-loaded event is received. Call this asynchronously with await.

---

$3

	Documentation	READ WRITE HUB
	Source code	github
	Component catalog	DOM COMPONENTS
	Package installation	npm
	Publication venue	READ WRITE STACK

$3

The rwt-xenotools DOM component is licensed under the MIT
License.