[patch][cla] first, last methods on NodeList

[Sam Foster]

This is mostly sugar, but I find a frequent pattern is wanting to use dojo.query to apply a function to the first/last element matching some css selector. But without a guarantee that the query will match you have to check the nodelist length before accessing properties on the first item - a pain.

[Sam Foster]

[PATCH] [CLA] adds a dojo-ext top-level dir to dojox, and a Nodelist.js which defines a first, last method

[Sam Foster]

I've got the first/last methods returning the NodeList?, so you could have e.g.:

dojo.query(".foo").first(function(n){ something... }).last(function(n) { something else }).etc...

So, its not overlapping with Nodelist.at(), nor is it the same as dojo.query("whatever:first-child"). The value I'm trying to add here is to avoid this:

/* get my element */
var nodes = dojo.query(".some > query"); 
if(nodes.length) { 
  doSomething(nodes[0]); 
}

Its admittedly of marginal value, but its also next to no code, and I think makes for more fluid (user) code.

[Adam Peller]

Pete, this one should probably belong to you...

[dante]

so I'd love to see the ext-dojo namespace exist and be fun, but it's not practical at the moment. I'm going to put these minimal sized functions in plugd and doc them as time permits, and give them that clear migration path into dojo should the api be agreed upon. moving to 'future' for now, but just means I'll close when the code is in plugd and more prepared for merging.

[dante]

added to plugd r26. closing this ticket wontfix. We can decide later if any of base plugd code should be promoted and doc at leisure this way. (all plugd stuff is CLA'd to foundation)