Supress Consecutive JavaScript Events

The previous solution with only firing of a task at the end of series of consecutive events had the obvious effect of updating the UI “late”: at the end of the event series. Now let’s do the opposite: fire off the task at the first event in the series, and simply supress the following events (so they don’t trigger firing off the task).

var EventSilencer = function() {
  var mutedEvents = {};

  var unmuteCallback = function(name) {
    return function() {
      delete mutedEvents[name];
    };
  };

  var muteEvent = function(name, duration) {
    var now = new Date().getTime();
    var newUntil = now + duration;
    var info = mutedEvents[name];
    if (!info) {
      info = {};
      mutedEvents[name] = info;
      info.timeoutId = setTimeout(unmuteCallback(name), newUntil - now);
      info.until = newUntil;
      return true;
    } else if (newUntil > info.until) {
      clearTimeout(info.timeoutId);
      info.timeoutId = setTimeout(unmuteCallback(name), newUntil - now);
      info.until = newUntil;
    }
    return false;
  };

  return function(name, fn, muteDuration) {
    if (muteEvent(name, muteDuration)) {
      fn();
    }
  };
}();