Retrieving a DOM value from Elm ports - elm

Question

My elm app uses an auto scrolling function, which gets the Y position of an element and uses Dom.Scroll.toY to scroll there.
Two do this, I set up two ports; a subscription and sender.
ports.elm
port setYofElementById : Maybe String -> Cmd msg
port getYofElementById : (Value -> msg) -> Sub msg
index.html
app.ports.setYofElementById.subscribe(function(id) {
var element = document.getElementById(id);
var rect = element.getBoundingClientRect();
app.ports.getYofElementById.send({"number": rect.top});
})
The listener is a subscription
subscriptions : Model -> Sub Msg
subscriptions model =
Ports.getYofElementById getYofElementById
getYofElementById : Decode.Value -> Msg
getYofElementById value =
let
result =
Decode.decodeValue bSimpleIntValueDecoder value
in
case result of
Ok simpleIntValue ->
SetSelectedElementYPosition (Just simpleIntValue.number)
Err id ->
SetSelectedElementYPosition Nothing
SetSelectedElementYPosition just sets the model.
Now, the action that executes this does two things: call Port.setYofElementById, then scrolls to the Y value in the model, assuming that it has already been set.
update : Msg -> Model -> ( Model, Cmd Msg )
update msg model =
case msg of
ScrollToY idString ->
model
=> Cmd.batch
[ Ports.setYofElementById (Just idString)
, Task.attempt (always NoOp) <| Dom.Scroll.toY "ul" model.selectedElementYPosition
]
However, this doesn't happen sequentially. When the action first fires, nothing happens. If I fire it again, it scrolls to the location called for in the first action. So it seems like it is calling Dom.Scroll.toY before the value is set.
Is there a way to force the Cmds in ScrollToY to happen in sequence? Or is there a better way to do this in general?

Answer 1

You can get the Cmds to execute in sequence by making the second, the one that does the Dom.Scroll.toY, happen as a response to the first, the one that does the setYofElementById. The following update function accomplishes this:
update : Msg -> Model -> ( Model, Cmd Msg )
update msg model =
case msg of
ScrollToY idString ->
(model, Ports.setYofElementById idString)
SetSelectedElementYPosition (Just newY) ->
(model, Task.attempt (always NoOp) <| Dom.Scroll.toY "ul" newY)
SetSelectedElementYPosition Nothing ->
(model, Cmd.none)
NoOp ->
(model, Cmd.none)
With the Cmds correctly sequenced, you will need to make sure that the newY argument to Dom.Scroll.toY is in the correct frame of reference to get the effect that you want.

Answer 2

I finally got this to work by tacking the action for Task.attempt (always NoOp) <| Dom.Scroll.toY "ul" model.selectedElementYPosition onto the action called by the subscription, not the action. That's the key.
With ports, the subscribe and send actions follow completely different pathways, so anything that reacts to a send from js to elm is not going to be referenced in the actions that go from elm to js.
In this case, since SetSelectedElementYPosition is being called from the subscription, you have to set the update there:
SetSelectedElementYPosition idString ->
({model | selectedElementYPosition = number }, Cmd.none)
|> andThen update GoToSelectedElementYPosition