how to bind polymer custom element to the contents?

Asked By: Anonymous

I’m trying to create an element which has a dynamic number of tabs depending on what content is given to the element. The only way I’ve figured out how to do this is in JS but I have a feeling this isn’t the Polymer way, what am I missing? Can you point me to some docs or other elements that will help me get started?

here’s what I have so far:

Using my custom element

<code-file-set>
   <a href="#" tabTitle="onelink">onelink</a>
   <a href="#" tabTitle="twolink">twolink</a>
   <a href="#" tabTitle="threelink">threelink</a>
</code-file-set>

Implementation of my custom element

<link rel="import" href="../bower_components/polymer/polymer.html">
<link rel="import" href="/bower_components/core-pages/core-pages.html">
<link rel="import" href="/bower_components/paper-tabs/paper-tabs.html">

<polymer-element name="code-file-set">
  <template>

      <paper-tabs id="tabs" selected={{selected}}>
      </paper-tabs>

      <core-pages selected="{{selected}}">
        <content id="codecontent" select="a"></content>
      </core-pages>
  </template>

<script>

  Polymer('code-file-set', {
    domReady: function() {
      var codeNodes = this.$.codecontent.getDistributedNodes();

      for (var i = 0; i < codeNodes.length; i++) {
        var name = codeNodes[i].getAttribute('tabTitle');
        var tab = document.createElement('paper-tab');
        tab.innerHTML = name;
        this.$.tabs.appendChild(tab);
      }    
      this.selected = 0;
    },
  });
</script>
</polymer-element>

This works, but it seems ugly. Namely, can creating the tabs not be done in JS but in a more declarative way in the HTML (notice that I create one tab per element found in the content).

Solution

Answered By: Anonymous

A proper data binding solution would be to define an array (tabs) as a published property and use template repeat to iterate through the array and populate each item onto the UI.

<polymer-element name="code-file-set" attributes="tabs">
    <template>
        <paper-tabs style="background-color:limegreen" selected="0">
            <template repeat="{{tab in tabs}}">
                <paper-tab>
                    <a href="{{tab.link}}">{{tab.tabTitle}}</a>
                </paper-tab>
            </template>
        </paper-tabs>
    </template>

    <script>
        Polymer('code-file-set', {
            ready: function () {
                this.tabs = [];

                for (var i = 0; i <= 3; i++) {
                    this.tabs.push({ link: '#', tabTitle: 'title ' + i });
                }
            },
        });
    </script>
</polymer-element>

See this jsbin as a working example.