Synchronizer.js is a tiny (666 bytes minified) utility class that you can use to synchronize asynchronous operations, like AJAX callbacks for example. It wraps the usual operation coutner in a small class so you can run more than one at once.
It's 90% inspired by this article : http://forrst.com/posts/callWhenDone_a_simple_synchronized_callback_clo-zi1
Don't forget to reference Synchronizer.js or Synchronizer.min.js in your html.
// initalize the object with the callback method that will be called when all operations
// are completed
var synchronizer = new Synchronizer(function(){ /* ... */ });
// make a call to add() everytime that you add a new operation
synchronizer.add();
myOperation(myOperationCallback);
// in the callback of your operation, make a call to done() to register the end of the operation
function myOperationCallback() {
synchronizer.done();
/* ... */
}
Cases you should avoid:
- If you call less done() than add(), the callback will never be called.
- If you call less add() than done(), an exception will be thrown.
You can pass an int value to add() and done() to change the number of operations that were completed
var synchronizer = new Synchronizer(function(){ /* ... */ });
// you know that there are 5 operations that will have to be completed
synchronizer.add(5);
// ... in one callback, for some obscure reason if you need to complete the 5 operations instead of one
synchronizer.done(5);
A small demo page is available
If this does not enough for you, there are plenty of libraries that does a lot more. Check for example async.
You can also build the javascript file yourself (that step is not required tho).
The javascript is built using TypeScript in Visual Studio (that's the .sln and .csproj files) and minified with Web Essentials, but feel free to use your tools of choice !