📓 Address Book: Delete Functionality and Polish

In this lesson, we'll add a user interface for our Address Book's delete functionality. We'll need to add a delete button to our HTML, an event listener for the new button, as well as a user interface function to handle actually calling AddressBook.prototype.deleteContact() to delete the contact.

At the end of this lesson, we'll also add some bootstrap classes that will make our Address Book application look more polished.

Delete Functionality

First, let's add a button to our HTML. We'll add this button to our contact details section. This will allow us to connect delete functionality to a specific Contact object.

index.html

<div id="contact-details" class="hidden">
  <h2>Contact Details:</h2>
  <p>First Name: <span class="first-name"></span></p>
  <p>Last Name: <span class="last-name"></span></p>
  <p>Phone Number: <span class="phone-number"></span></p>
  <button class="delete" type="button">Delete</button>
</div>

Next, let's turn to our scripts. First, we'll create a new event listener attached to our delete button that listens for a 'click' event. Then we'll create the beginning of a handler function called handleDelete().

js/scripts.js

...

function handleDelete(event) {
  
}

...

window.addEventListener("load", function (){
  document.querySelector("form#new-contact").addEventListener("submit", handleFormSubmission);
  document.querySelector("div#contacts").addEventListener("click", displayContactDetails);
  // The line below this one is new!
  document.querySelector("button.delete").addEventListener("click", handleDelete);
});

Next, we'll need to create the actual delete functionality. Our functionality relies on the AddressBook.prototype.deleteContact() method, which takes a Contact object id as an argument. This means that our button will need access to the id of the current contact that's being displayed.

The displayContactDetails() function already has access to the Contact object's details, so let's update that function to also update our new delete button with an id attribute set to the id of the contact.

js/scripts.js

function displayContactDetails(event) {
  const contact = addressBook.findContact(event.target.id);
  document.querySelector(".first-name").innerText = contact.firstName;
  document.querySelector(".last-name").innerText = contact.lastName;
  document.querySelector(".phone-number").innerText = contact.phoneNumber;
  // The line below this one is new!
  document.querySelector("button.delete").setAttribute("id", contact.id);
  document.querySelector("div#contact-details").removeAttribute("class");
}

With document.querySelector("button.delete").setAttribute("id", contact.id);, we are accessing our delete button and then giving it an id attribute set to the Contact object's id. We'll do this every time we display the details of a Contact object, so our button will always have the value of the currently displayed Contact.

Now it's time to add code to the handleDelete() function:

js/scripts.js

function handleDelete(event) {
  addressBook.deleteContact(event.target.id);
  document.querySelector("button.delete").removeAttribute("id");
  document.querySelector("div#contact-details").setAttribute("class", "hidden");
  listContacts(addressBook);
}

Let's break down this new code line by line:

First we call AddressBook.prototype.deleteContact() to delete the Contact object. Since addressBook is a global variable, we can call on it from within the handleDelete() function. Remember that we're using the global addressBook variable as a mock database and that we typically should avoid global variables.
Then, we remove the id attribute from the delete button, thereby resetting it. This line of code is actually optional, because any time we use the Element.setAttribute() method to create an id for an element, it will overwrite the existing id attribute, if there is one. This means that when we call Element.setAttribute() in the displayContactDetails() function, it will overwrite the existing id attribute. Whether or not we include this line of code depends on the needs of our application. It may turn out to be better to ensure that our handleDelete() function clears the id for the delete button so it can't be incorrectly used elsewhere.
In the next line of code, we are hiding the contact details div once more.
Finally, we call the listContacts function again to refresh the list of contacts, this time without the contact that we've deleted.

More Improvements

Our address book is now fully functional. Let's add a few more user experience improvements before wrapping up.

Bootstrap Styles

First, let's utilize Bootstrap classes to add styling and a more organized layout to our page.

index.html

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
  <head>
  <link 
    href="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/bootstrap@5.2.3/dist/css/bootstrap.min.css" 
    rel="stylesheet" 
    integrity="sha384-rbsA2VBKQhggwzxH7pPCaAqO46MgnOM80zW1RWuH61DGLwZJEdK2Kadq2F9CUG65" 
    crossorigin="anonymous">
    <link href="css/styles.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css">
    <script src="js/scripts.js"></script>
    <title>Address Book</title>
  </head>
  <body>
    <div class="container">
      <h1>Address Book</h1>
      <div class="row">
        <div class="col-md-6">
          <hr />
          <h2>Add a Contact:</h2>
          <form id="new-contact">
            <div class="form-group">
              <label for="new-first-name">First Name</label>
              <input type="text"  class="form-control" id="new-first-name" name="new-first-name">
            </div>
            <div class="form-group">
              <label for="new-last-name">Last Name</label>
              <input type="text"  class="form-control" id="new-last-name" name="new-last-name">
            </div>
            <div class="form-group">
              <label for="new-phone-number">Phone Number</label>
              <input type="text"  class="form-control" id="new-phone-number" name="new-phone-number">
            </div>
            <button type="submit" class="btn-primary">Add</button>
          </form>
          <hr />
          <h2>Contacts:</h2>
          <div id="contacts">
          </div>
        </div>
        <div class="col-md-6">
          <div id="contact-details" class="hidden">
            <h2>Contact Details:</h2>
            <p>First Name: <span class="first-name"></span></p>
            <p>Last Name: <span class="last-name"></span></p>
            <p>Phone Number: <span class="phone-number"></span></p>
            <button class="btn-primary delete" type="button">Delete</button>
          </div>
        </div>
      </div>
    </div>
  </body>
</html>

Now our webpage will look a little nicer!

Empty Form Fields

Let's also make sure to empty out our form fields after submission:

js/scripts.js

...

function handleFormSubmission(event) {
  event.preventDefault();
  const inputtedFirstName = document.querySelector("input#new-first-name").value;
  const inputtedLastName = document.querySelector("input#new-last-name").value;
  const inputtedPhoneNumber = document.querySelector("input#new-phone-number").value;
  let newContact = new Contact(inputtedFirstName, inputtedLastName, inputtedPhoneNumber);
  addressBook.addContact(newContact);
  listContacts(addressBook);
  document.querySelector("input#new-first-name").value = null;
  document.querySelector("input#new-last-name").value = null;
  document.querySelector("input#new-phone-number").value = null;
}

...

If you want to see all the updated code, check the branch in the repository below.

Example GitHub Repo for the Address Book

Delete Functionality​

More Improvements​

Bootstrap Styles​

Empty Form Fields​

Delete Functionality

More Improvements

Bootstrap Styles

Empty Form Fields