CoffeeScript: How to use both fat arrow and this?

Question

I have a coffeescript class that has some jquery event listeners. I would like to use the fat arrow => to avoid having to reference the class, but I still need a reference to the element that would usually be used with this. How can I use both?

class PostForm
    constructor: ->
        $('ul.tabs li').on 'click', =>
            tab = $(this)
            @highlight_tab(tab)
            @set_post_type(tab.attr('data-id'))

    highlight_tab: (tab)->
        tab.addClass 'active'

    set_post_type: (id) ->
        $('#post_type_id').val(id)

Answer 1

I prefer this version, because I can understand it more easily.

class PostForm
    constructor: ->
        post_form = this

        $('ul.tabs li').on 'click', (event) ->
            tab = $(this)
            post_form.highlight_tab(tab)

Answer 2

CoffeeScript links both this and @ to the outer context, therefore you cannot access the context that jQuery provided (aka the desired "this"). Use event.target instead:

class PostForm
    constructor: ->
        $('ul.tabs li').on 'click', (event) =>
            tab = $(event.target)
            @highlight_tab(tab)

Answer 3

Using evt.currentTarget

You should probably use evt.currentTarget (which is equivalent to this) instead of evt.target (which isn't). If the node that you are tapping for click notifications has child nodes, evt.target might be one of those child nodes instead of the node you added the click handler to.

See http://codepen.io/ddopson/pen/erLiv for a demo of this behavior. (click on the inner red box to see that currentTarget points at the red div while target points at outer blue div that the event handler is registered on)

$('ul.tabs li').on 'click', (event) =>
  tab = $(event.currentTarget)
  @highlight_tab(tab)

Answer to the question asked - getting both `=>` and `this`:

You can do the following...

$('ul.tabs li').on 'click', (event) =>
  tab = $(` this `)     # MAKE SURE TO ADD THE SPACES AROUND `this`
  @highlight_tab(tab)

The spaces are critical as they prevent Coffee from munching this into _this.

Using `self` and `->`

Alternatively, do the following ...

self = this
$('ul.tabs li').on 'click', (event) ->
  tab = $(this)
  self.highlight_tab(tab)

This is similar to CQQL's answer, except that I prefer the idiomatic use of self as the variable name; my VIM syntax highlighting rules color self as a "special" variable just as it would for this, arguments, or prototype.

Answer 4

You may want to access variables set in the constructor from your functions. This would be how you do it (the key is calling the function via self while first extracting this with a thin arrow):

class PostForm
    constructor: ->
        self = this

        @some_contrived_variable = true

        $('ul.tabs li').on 'click', ->
            tab = $(this)
            self.highlight_tab(tab)
            self.set_post_type(tab.attr('data-id'))

    highlight_tab: (tab) ->
        # Because of the fat arrow here you can now access @ again
        if @some_contrived_variable
            tab.addClass 'active'

    set_post_type: (id) ->
        $('#post_type_id').val(id)

BTW: This is a great explanation of when to use the fat and thin arrow.

Summary:

1. Do you use this (@) in the function?
2. Do you want to execute the function later, possibly from a different scope?