Prototype custom event NOT on a DOM element

Question

Same as this question, but Prototype library specific:

I've got a Browser class, and I want to fire and observe custom events for this class. Prototype's custom event system only lets me bind to and fire events on DOM elements. Here's my first idea as to an alternative:

function Browser() {
    this.event = new Element('span');
}
Browser.prototype.render = function() {
    this.event.fire('browser:render');
}

var browser = new Browser();
browser.event.observe('browser:render', function() { ... });

Is there a better way to do this?

Answer 1

Thanks in part to Frits van Campen's advice, I made my own that serves my needs, a little more sophisticated than Frits' sample.

function EventManager(target) {
    var target = target || window,
        events = {};
    this.observe = function(eventName, cb) {
        if (events[eventName]) events[eventName].push(cb);
        else events[eventName] = new Array(cb);
        return target;
    };
    this.stopObserving = function(eventName, cb) {
        if (events[eventName]) {
            var i = events[eventName].indexOf(cb);
            if (i > -1) events[eventName].splice(i, 1);
            else return false;
            return true;
        }
        else return false;
    };
    this.fire = function(eventName) {
        if (!events[eventName]) return false;
        for (var i = 0; i < events[eventName].length; i++) {
            events[eventName][i].apply(target, Array.prototype.slice.call(arguments, 1));
        }
    };
}

Then I can do:

Function Browser() {
    this.event = new EventManager(this);
}
Browser.prototype.render = function() {
    this.event.fire("render");
}   

browser = new Browser();
browser.event.observe("render", function() { alert("Rendered"); });

Answer 2

Why not just build your own event handling system? It really doesn't take much.

function MyClass() {
    this.handlers = {};
}
MyClass.prototype.registerHandler = function(event, callback) {
    this.handlers[event] = callback;
};
MyClass.prototype.fire = function(event) {
    this.handlers[event]();
};

var instance = new MyClass();
instance.registerHandler('an event', function () {
    alert('hi!');
});
instance.fire('an event');