A wrapper for Test & Target to turn its "over-simplified-for-marketers" mbox api into a developer friendly, JSONP-like service call.

experience.js

/**
 *
 * Adobe Test and Target doesn't really have a nice API for dynamically including content, so this wraps it to provide that.
 *
 * What T&T wants you to do is simply define an "mbox" div on a page, call them and tell them the id of that div, and they handle
 * populating content to that div.
 *
 * What I prefer to do is simply make a service call to T&T, have them give me some data/configuration back, and I will handle rendering
 * content, however I see fit.
 * 
 */
window.experience = (function(){

    'use strict';

    var experience = {

        /**
         * This is the only public method that site code should need to deal with. Wrapper around mboxUpdate that does the following:
         * 
         * 1) Returns a promise
         * 2) Handles calling of mboxDefine, so it is not a seperate step
         *
         * @param  {String} Mbox name
         * @param  {String...} Any number of string values that look like "route_distance=399"
         * @return {Promise} A promise that will be resolved with JSON response from Test and Target
         */
        load: function() {
            
            var args = Array.prototype.slice.call(arguments, 0);
            var mboxName = args[0];
            var $mbox = this.mboxes[mboxName];

            /*T&T needs to have an div to render the returned content to ... we are creating them dynamically as they're needed,
            rather than placing on the page staticly*/
            if (!$mbox) {
                $mbox = $('<div id="' + mboxName + '">');
                $('body').append($mbox);
                this.mboxes[mboxName] = $mbox;
                mboxDefine(mboxName, mboxName);
            }


            /*Because mbox.js gives us no real way of knowing when the request is done, we're a using JSONP-like strategy.
            We create a unique id like "OTA_WIDGET_1_MBOX12312314" and pass along as an "mbox parameter" on our T&T call.
            The content we configure in T&T is actually JSON wrapped in a function call to the "resolve" function defined
            in this file (JSONP):
            
              <script>
                  experience.resolve("OTA_WIDGET_1_MBOX12312314", {JSON here})
              </script>
              
            Our script knows which promise to resolve based on that unique id: "OTA_WIDGET_1_MBOX12312314"*/
            var callbackid = mboxName + new Date().getTime();
            var deferred = jQuery.Deferred();
            this.deferreds[callbackid] = deferred;
            args.push('callbackid=' + callbackid);

            /*Just want to make sure this happens after our promise is created, because we want to make sure all
            callbacks are in place when T&T returns*/
            setTimeout(function(){
                mboxUpdate.apply(this, args);
            });
            
            return deferred.promise();
        },

        /**
         * Response from T&T needs to call this in order to resolve the promise. So this call will actually be located
         * in T&T content.
         * 
         * @param  {String} callbackid id that was passed to T&T that corresponds to experience.load call
         * @param  {Object} json response
         */
        resolve: function(callbackid, options) {
            this.deferreds[callbackid].resolve(options);
            delete this.deferreds[callbackid]; //Don't hold on to a reference
        },

        deferreds: {},
        mboxes: {}
        
    };

    return experience;
})();

@JasonStoltz Neat little trick, I was looking for something like this and seems like I can use this to write ur A/B test with much more flexibility now. I am very new T&T (coming from maximiser background), so little confused as to how to get the mbox JSON data. Can you explain this gist with an example from T&T. An example can be that on a page we want to change a div (id=test1) with new content, so what piece of code goes in T&T and what goes on the page? I am happy to test this out and even contribute with code and documentation. thanks.

You are a boss.