Targets: Finding Elements

Each time stimulus sees a new data-controller="counter" on the page, it instantiates a new instance of our controller class and calls this connect() method. From here, we can do anything! We can attach event listeners, change HTML or whatever else we dream up. And we can do it with or without jQuery: your choice. Heck we can even render React or Vue components from in here! That's something we'll do later.

But there are a few things that we do so often in a controller that Stimulus gives us some extra, optional, tools. The first helps us find elements inside of the controller element.

Here's the new challenge: instead of replacing all of the HTML when we click, I want to just change the number part.

Moving the Starting HTML into the Template

Head into our template - templates/product/index.html.twig - and remove the extra controller element: we don't need 2 anymore, that was just to test things out.

Inside the remaining element, let's add some HTML inside to start, like "I have been clicked" then <span> with class="counter-count", the zero inside, and then "times".

You might already know what I'm doing: I'm adding an element around the exact thing we want to change with a class so that we can use that class to find the element.

Oh, and by the way, this is the way we will normally work with Stimulus: we render HTML in the template - like we've been doing for years. Then we add behavior to some of that HTML in the controller. What I mean is, the controller isn't usually responsible for rendering the full content into the element, like you would do with React or Vue. The HTML belongs in the template.

Over in the controller, this means that we don't need the innerHTML logic anymore: that's already in the element.

Finding an Element without Targets

To replace just the number when we click, we need to find the span we created. Let's see - copy the counter-count class. To find this without jQuery, we can say const counterNumberElement = this.element - we're always going to start by looking inside the controller's element - then .getElementsByClassName() and pass this counter-count. This will return an array of all the elements, so we need to get the [0] index.

So... kind of easy... but not that easy to find the element. But it is enough to get the job done. Inside the click callback, replace this.element.innerHTML with counterNumberElement.innerHTML = this.count.

Sweet! Let's try it. Spin over, refresh and click. Beautiful!

Adding a "target"

But... finding that element was kind of ugly... especially because we're going to do that kind of stuff so often. Thankfully, Stimulus has a feature to make it so much nicer. It's called targets.

Here's how targets works. First, at the top of the class, add a static targets property. You can do that with static targets = an array and add count inside. count is the name of the new target we're creating and it could be anything: I just made that up.

Now, in the template. replace the class="" with a special data attribute: data-counter-target="count".

So that is very specifically named. It's data-, the name of our controller, dash the word target, equals, and then the name of the target. In this case, that's count.

Thanks to this, back inside the controller, we don't need to find the element anymore: it's already available! Remove the getElementsByClassName() and down inside the click callback, all we need is: this.countTarget.innerHTML = this.count.

That's it. Before we chat, let's go test it! Refresh... and... it still works!

Target Naming and Properties

So as soon as we have a target inside of our controller - in this case named count - we magically get access to a property called countTarget. That's one of the trickiest things about Stimulus: getting used to these naming conventions: like countTarget and data-controllerName-target="targetName".

Anyways, this.countTarget will either be an element or throw an error if no matching target was found. If there are multiple, it will return the first.

You can also use this.countTargets: that returns an array of all of the matching targets. We'll use that later to find each "color square" in a color selector that we're going to make.

Finally, if you want to check to see if a target exists, you can use this.hasCountTarget.

So... you will never again need to search for an element inside a controller. Targets have you covered. That's awesome!

The Class Properties Syntax

Oh, and I do want to say one thing about this targets = [] part. This syntax - where we set properties with an equal sign - is actually an experimental feature in JavaScript. To use it, in your webpack.config.js file, you need to have this configureBabel() line here: this adds a special plugin to Babel that gives us support for the syntax. The line comes automatically with the Encore recipe.

Next: there's one other super common thing that we always need to do in a controller: listen to events. Or, I guess you can think of this as "responding to user actions" like "click". Stimulus gives us a great way to handle this.