Plugin Code Doesn't Run On Refresh After Action

[ermentrude]

I'm going to describe this as best I can, and apologize if this is brought up before and my lack of knowledge kept me from finding it.

We have a number of plugins running on our board.  I've noticed with all of them that affect display, that after you take an action in a thread, the plugin isn't applied on refresh.  

For example:
We have a plugin that hides duplicate signatures.  Works like a charm.
As a moderator, I delete a "bump" post from a thread.  
When the page refreshes - the post I deleted is gone (good), but the signature shows up in each post by the same user (not ideal).

This happens with any action: moderator or just plain posting.  And it happens with multiple plugins although the signature one is the easiest to describe.  

Is this a known issue or a javascript quirk?  It happens at work on Firefox and at home on Chrome, so I'm thinking it isn't a local setting, but maybe. It isn't a crisis, but I could see it be an inconvenience depending on what the code is supposed to do.

[Chris]

Apr 3, 2013 18:42:00 GMT -8 ermentrude said:

I'm going to describe this as best I can, and apologize if this is brought up before and my lack of knowledge kept me from finding it.

We have a number of plugins running on our board.  I've noticed with all of them that affect display, that after you take an action in a thread, the plugin isn't applied on refresh.  

For example:
We have a plugin that hides duplicate signatures.  Works like a charm.
As a moderator, I delete a "bump" post from a thread.  
When the page refreshes - the post I deleted is gone (good), but the signature shows up in each post by the same user (not ideal).

This happens with any action: moderator or just plain posting.  And it happens with multiple plugins although the signature one is the easiest to describe.  

Is this a known issue or a javascript quirk?  It happens at work on Firefox and at home on Chrome, so I'm thinking it isn't a local setting, but maybe. It isn't a crisis, but I could see it be an inconvenience depending on what the code is supposed to do.

The problem you're describing is because there actually isn't a refresh which would reload and reinitialize all codes/plugins and this is due to the changes being made through AJAX only on necessary parts of the page rather than entire page for a more efficient and responsive forum experience.
Plugin authors have been asking for some kind of notification event that could be subscribed to by their plugins (aka a callback) in order to manually reinitialize their code when a change is made. There however already exists such an event since one can subscribe to an autosearch custom widget event which looks to fire after display related AJAX transactions. I haven't obviously tested if it indeed fires in all scenarios but I also haven't encountered a scenario where it doesn't.

If that event proves dependable then this is more a problem of unfamiliarity with a new system (especially since no official documentation exists yet) rather than a problem with the system itself and the authors of said plugins need to be made aware of the subscribable event.

[Michael]

Documentation is still forthcoming! I'm not sure if we'll be getting a callback notification event though, I'll inquire with the team if this is also still going to be coming in the future.