I am working on a problem where I have a large task that is broken down into a lot of subtasks. The subtasks each take a significant amount of time to do. My data model looks something like this:
class LargeTask < ActiveRecord::Base has_many :sub_tasks end
class SubTask < ActiveRecord::Base belongs_to :large_task end
When I create the large task, it creates all of the subtasks on its own and populates them with the data that they need to run, and saves them. It doesn't actually perform the subtask until I call a method on the subtask object.
What I am thinking is that when I create a new LargeTask, it will redirect to the show action of that LargeTask, and will display all of the subtasks in a list. I will then use AJAX to one-at-a-time call the Run action on each of the SubTasks and have it update the section of the page that it is displaying. When one gets finished running, then the javascript on the page being displayed would kick off the next task. Basically I want to give the user visual feedback of where in the process they are.
Is there a way that I can use the AJAX functionality built into rails to make this happen without having to do some sort of custom control mechanism to track all of the SubTasks on the client side? Or is there a better strategy to go about this?
The SubTasks do not need to be run in any particular order. I will probably eventually run 2 or 3 at a time.
Any suggestions? Thanks in advance.
Jonathan