Fix, and enhance, the AJAX support

This looks great mooffie! I like the AJAX link return better than the huge array. I also like how you just update (or create) the big array as necessary. Pretty neat.

I found a small appearance bug though, when repeatedly toggling a link (2 or more times), the link gets "refreshed" twice, causing the fade effect to double. This is because the "flipLink()" function is called once immediately, then the "refreshLink()" is called after the AJAX request completes.

So this patch fixes that problem (plus some minor spacing issues), but it breaks the ability to have "Digg this! ([flag-digg-count] diggs)", because the settings are no longer updated on every request. Even without these changes, the Digg example would have some minor issues, where the link would be toggled immediately but the count would be wrong, then the AJAX request comes back and the number would be updated appropriately.

This version fixes the "Digg problem" and my double-refresh problem. I added a "settings.linkUpdated" variable, which we can check to prevent the flagged message from getting the fadeIn() effect twice.

The terminology all makes perfect sense to me. Great job. Here's a revised patch that I consider a real possibility for inclusion in the module (with all the commented out code removed).

I actually like this method more than our current method in every regard. I like the delay during the request, as it makes me feel like something is actually happening. The fade-out of the link is also a nice touch. I added one safeguard to your code that makes the click handler immediately return false if the link is already waiting for a request, this should help with those impulsive "double-clickers" out there on the internet from sending identical requests to the server.

The only downer is the matte color of white behind the throbber. This is probably more acceptable in the auto-complete textfield and in the Views interface, because it's very likely that the background will be white. However, there's only so much we can provide out-of-box before the user needs to roll up their sleeves and do some CSS.

Shoot, sorry. Here's the patch.

Sigh, well crap. It seems to be missing entirely. Let's cleanup your patch in #5 again and go from there.

This looks great! You got all the same points I had, like just binding the link to flagClick directly with no wrappers, setting var element = this, link guard, etc.

Somehow a tab snuck into the JS file. Here it is without the tab.

I committed these changes after a (rather painful) port to Drupal 5. The caveat I ran into with Drupal 5's jQuery was this line:

var $nucleus = $newLink.is('a') ? $newLink : $newLink.find('a.flag');

In jQuery 1.0.4, the find() method permanently affects the original object, so $newLink became just the a.flag that was found (this can be undone by calling $newLink.end()).

My workaround was just to avoid using find at all with this line:

var $nucleus = $newLink.is('a') ? $newLink : $('a.flag', $newLink);

Besides this change, I also adjusted the formatting of our code, so it look like the entire JS file has been changed due to the removal of indenting. Now both the D5 and D6 versions are identical except for the last 6 lines of the file.

Rock!