Fun at work with Ajax

[ericgtr]

I have inherited this project and though the actual page displayed looks cool, I have to add sections to it. They initially had a company write the code and they love them but as you can see the code behind it is an utter mess. They have completely housed the templating system in the javascript, let me tell you it just makes my day when I have to work with this crap. When I have time I am going to rewrite the entire thing but in the meantime here is a chunk of what I have to work with every time I make an update:

var OrgGroup1Template =  "	<div class=\"topCap\">&nbsp;</div>\n" 
+ "<!--left-->\n"
+ "<div class=\"leftEar\">\n"
+ "{{7}}:<br/>\n"
+ "<a href=\"mailto:{{8}}\" class=\"employee\">{{9}}</a><br/>\n"
/* Additional name on top left updated by Eric Thurber 05-23-07 */
+ "<br/>{{16}}:<br/>\n"
+ "<a href=\"mailto:{{17}}\" class=\"employee\">{{18}}</a><br/>\n"
//+ "{{10}}:<br/>\n"
//+ "<a href=\"mailto:{{11}}\" class=\"employee\">{{19}}</a>\n"
+ "</div>\n"
+ "<!--center-->\n"
+ "<div class=\"whiteboxOuter vipOuter\">\n"
+ "<div class=\"whiteboxTopCap\"><img src=\"images/whiteboxTopRight.gif\"></div>\n"
+ "<div class=\"vip\">\n"
+ "<img src=\"images/iconPerson.gif\" width=\"30\" height=\"40\" alt=\"\" border=\"0\">\n"
+ "<a href=\"mailto:{{0}}\" class=\"employee\">{{1}}</a><br/>\n"
+ "{{2}}\n"
+ "<div class=\"clearAll\">&nbsp;</div>\n"
+ "</div>\n"
+ "<div class=\"whiteboxBottomCap\"><img src=\"images/whiteboxBottomRight.gif\"></div>\n"
+ "</div>\n"
/*+ "<div class=\"whiteboxOuter vipOuter\">\n"
+ "<div class=\"whiteboxTopCap\"><img src=\"images/whiteboxTopRight.gif\"></div>\n"
+ "<div class=\"vip\">\n"
+ "<img src=\"images/iconPerson.gif\" width=\"30\" height=\"40\" alt=\"\" border=\"0\">\n"
+ "<a href=\"mailto:{{3}}\" class=\"employee\">{{4}}</a><br/>\n"
+ "{{5}}\n"
+ "<div class=\"clearAll\">&nbsp;</div>\n"
+ "</div>\n"
+ "<div class=\"whiteboxBottomCap\"><img src=\"images/whiteboxBottomRight.gif\"></div>\n"*/
+ "</div>\n"
+ "<!--right-->\n"
+ "<div class=\"rightEar\">\n"
+ "{{10}}:<br/>\n"
+ "<a href=\"mailto:{{11}}\" class=\"employee\">{{12}}</a><br/>\n"
//+ "{{16}}:<br/>\n"
//+ "<a href=\"mailto:{{17}}\" class=\"employee\">{{18}}</a><br/>\n"
+ "</div>"
+ "<div class=\"bottomCap\">&nbsp;</div>";

var SupportTemplate = "<div class=\"lightbluebox\">"
+ "<a href=\"{{0}}\" class=\"group\">{{1}}</a>"
+ "<div class=\"whiteboxOuter\">"
+ "<div class=\"whiteboxTopCap\"><img src=\"images/whiteboxTopRightLite.gif\"></div>"
+ "<div class=\"whiteboxInner\">"
+ "{{2}}"
+ "</div>"
+ "<div class=\"whiteboxBottomCap\"><img src=\"images/whiteboxBottomRightLite.gif\"></div>"
+ "</div>"
+ "<div class=\"bottomCap\">&nbsp;</div>"
+ "</div>";

var OperationsTemplate = "<div class=\"bluebox\">"
+ "<a href=\"{{0}}\" class=\"group\">{{1}}</a>"
+ "<div class=\"whiteboxOuter\">"
+ "<div class=\"whiteboxTopCap\"><img src=\"images/whiteboxTopRight.gif\"></div>"
+ "<div class=\"whiteboxInner\">"
+ "{{2}}"
+ "</div>"
+ "<div class=\"whiteboxBottomCap\"><img src=\"images/whiteboxBottomRight.gif\"></div>"
+ "</div>"
+ "<div class=\"bottomCap\">&nbsp;</div>"
+ "</div>";	

var OperationsTopTemplate = "<td>"
+ "<a href=\"{{0}}\" class=\"group\">{{1}}</a>"
+ "<div class=\"whiteboxOuter\">"
+ "<div class=\"whiteboxTopCap\"><img src=\"images/whiteboxTopRight.gif\"></div>"
+ "<div class=\"whiteboxInner matchHeight\">"
+ "{{2}}"
+ "</div>"
+ "<div class=\"whiteboxBottomCap\"><img src=\"images/whiteboxBottomRight.gif\"></div>"
+ "</div>"
+ "</td>";

[Paul M]

Ouch ...

[KTBleeding]

Aside from the obvious.. why is this in JS? I've got to say, "Holy unnecessary amount of divisions, batman."

[ericgtr]

My company (Intel) hired an outside company to do this for them before I got hired there and it's heavily integrated with the xml and javascript. Then they come to me and ask me to add things to it, problem is they didn't have any quality control and just liked the look of the end product. So now I am stuck with it until I can make the time to rewrite the entire system, which I plan on doing eventually.

[EnIgMa1234]

Wow that sucks for you

[Dream]

fun times

[Code Monkey]

Oh my, I have never seen such a thing. About as bad as inheriting something that has html in the PHP.

[ericgtr]

Originally Posted by Code Monkey

Oh my, I have never seen such a thing. About as bad as inheriting something that has html in the PHP.

That's what I thought too, at least in PHP it's escaped out though, here it's just a cluttered mess.

remembers me of the old times...

[ericgtr]

Since this company is apparently writing more software for us I wrote them to ask about this and quality control over all. Unfortunately we don't have the money to put into checking all the code they are making, other than basic testing. But if that's their practice we need to look elsewhere.