Custom Callouts in the SharePoint 2013 Metro UI, Part 3: the CalloutManager

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CalloutManager allows to get or create an instance of the callout and manage its state.

How to Get a Callout

If you need to manage already created callout you have to get a reference to the desired instance. The CalloutManager has several methods to do it.

getFromLaunchPoint

This method allows to get an instance of the callout from its launch point. The only argument is the DOM element that is used as a launch point for the desired callout:

// choose the launch point HTML element
var launchPoint = document.getElementById('calloutDiv');
// get the callout
var callout = CalloutManager.getFromLaunchPoint(launchPoint);

If there's no defined callout for the specified launch point the error will be raised.

getFromLaunchPointIfExists

It's the variation of the getFromLaunchPoint (see above) method. The only difference is that there will be no error if the callout isn't founded. In that case the method simply returns null. it allows to check for the existence of the callout instance silently.

// get the callout
var callout = CalloutManager.getFromLaunchPointIfExists(launchPoint);
if (callout == null)
{
   // create
}

getFromCalloutDescendant

This method allows to get a callout instance from the DOM element located inside it's structure. It allows for example to get the callout from its content. The only argument is the DOM element. If the chosen DOM element is not inside the callout or the callout is not found for the some reason the error will be raised.

// choose the descendant HTML element
var descendant = document.getElementById('descendantDiv');

// get the callount
var callout = CalloutManager.getFromCalloutDescendant(descendant);

How to Create a Callout

There are two methods to create a callout. Both methods accept a callout creation options object and return the created callout instance. For the details of the creation see the first article of the series.

createNew

The method createNew which allows to create a callout is described in the first part of this series.

createNewIfNecessary

The method createNewIfNecessary is almost identical to the createNew but creates the callout only if there's no callout for the target launch point already. If there's a callout it will be returned instead of the creation of the new one.

var callout = CalloutManager.createNewIfNecessary(calloutOptions);

How to Remove a Callout

If you need to remove the callout you need to pass it to the remove method of the CalloutManager:

// get the callout
var launchPoint = document.getElementById('calloutDiv');
var callout = CalloutManager.getFromLaunchPoint(launchPoint);
// remove
CalloutManager.remove(callout);

How to Enumerate All Callouts

If you need to get all the defined callouts you can use the forEach method of the CalloutManager:

// close all the callouts on the page
CalloutManager.forEach(function(callout) {
   // close the current callout
   callout.close();
   }
});

You have to specify a function to apply for each callout. The only argument of this function is the callout instance currently being processed.

How to Close All Opened Callouts

The previous section shows how you can close all the callouts enumerating them by forEach method. But for this particular task the CalloutManager has the helper shortcut function - closeAll:

// close all the callouts;
var isAtLeastOneCalloutClosed = CalloutManager.closeAll();

This function return true if at least one callout was closed.

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