I'm trying to create a div that doesn't get populated with data until
an AJAX call gets sent and then it's shown to the user (previously is
hidden). Unfortunately, I'm fairly new to all of this and am still
trying to figure out how to do things the "Rails" way.
I was thinking that I could just do a link_to_remote and have the
controller render the partial that has my content. However, all
JavaScript in my partial gets stripped out and so it doesn't function
properly. I could probably include the JavaScript in the main view, but
that'd defeat the purpose of using AJAX to load it later (attempting to
have less load at once and therefore have less strain on the server and
client at once).
I did see some mentions on here about how to include JavaScript in a
rendered partial, but I didn't quite understand it all and figured that
I'd first ask and see if I'm going about it the right way before I
spent a bunch of time trying to figure that all out. Or, am I barking
up the wrong tree with link_to_remote and doing a render :partial in
the first place?
I was thinking that I could just do a link_to_remote and have the
controller render the partial that has my content. However, all
JavaScript in my partial gets stripped out and so it doesn't function
properly.
You gotta post some code. Rendering with JavaScript happens all the
time around here, but one typo with render :update will twist you
JS...
Well, that could well be my problem since I'm not currently using
render :update, but rather render :partial in the controller. Let me
try switching to that (once I figure out how to use it properly) and
re-post with those results...
def graph
get_tests
get_data
render :partial => 'graph'
end
The code comes up fairly quickly, but I get a JavaScript error saying
that PlotKit is not defined. When I check the rendered source code, it
shows that all of the JavaScript is missing that was in the graph
partial (app/views/report/_graph.rhtml).
However, I had noticed references to render :update and so I'm thinking
that maybe I should go that way. Once I convert my code to that (have
another, more pressing, project that I'm doing right now), I'll post my
results.
def graph
get_tests
get_data
render :partial => 'graph'
end
The code comes up fairly quickly, but I get a JavaScript error saying
that PlotKit is not defined. When I check the rendered source code, it
shows that all of the JavaScript is missing that was in the graph
partial (app/views/report/_graph.rhtml).
How did you get this source? View Source on a browser won't show you
the effects of any JavaScript. The best bet would be to use more
JavaScript to access document.body.innerHTML. Watir would be great for
that.
However, I had noticed references to render :update and so I'm thinking
that maybe I should go that way. Once I convert my code to that (have
another, more pressing, project that I'm doing right now), I'll post my
results.
Render :update do |page| page.stuff end only works on local RJS. Your
_graph.rhtml should work; show some of it.
And what's PlotKit? Why not use Gruff or GnuPlot? The more you do on
the server the better...
How did you get this source? View Source on a browser won't show you
the effects of any JavaScript. The best bet would be to use more
JavaScript to access document.body.innerHTML. Watir would be great for
that.
The Web Developer toolbar for Firefox lets you view generated source
(View Source-->View Generated Source from the toolbar). Great tool for
making sure your generated JavaScript source actually works properly...
Render :update do |page| page.stuff end only works on local RJS. Your
_graph.rhtml should work; show some of it.
And what's PlotKit? Why not use Gruff or GnuPlot? The more you do on
the server the better...
You can get to my _graph.rhtml at http://betablue.net/_graph.rhtml.
Every JavaScript piece in there (included .js files and the script
itself at the end) is just deleted from the file when I do a render on
it. And yes, the code is ugly, but it does work because I had it
directly inside the view earlier and it only stopped working after I
pulled it out...
As for PlotKit, it's actually rather necessary because we are going to
be running this off of Solaris 2.7 machines and I really don't want to
mess with installing ImageMagick (or other C libraries) for those... I
will get Gruff working eventually for the Linux machines (much easier),
but for now, I don't want to deal with the Solaris and ImageMagick.
As for PlotKit, it's actually rather necessary because we are going to
be running this off of Solaris 2.7 machines and I really don't want to
mess with installing ImageMagick (or other C libraries) for those... I
will get Gruff working eventually for the Linux machines (much easier),
but for now, I don't want to deal with the Solaris and ImageMagick.
Install gnuplot and grab gnuplot.rb. Much easier than RMagick's
peculiar issues...
Agreed, I should push some of that into helpers, but the <%- -%> is
always evaluated and is the same as <% %> (doesn't output to the
browser), except that the new line before and the new line after are
removed (doesn't put extra new-lines into your source code like <% %>
does).
However, I don't think that the lack of helpers is what is causing the
issue... I finished my other project, so I'll be dedicating tomorrow
(Friday) to this and post on here if I figure it out.
Agreed, I should push some of that into helpers, but the <%- -%> is
always evaluated and is the same as <% %> (doesn't output to the
browser), except that the new line before and the new line after are
removed (doesn't put extra new-lines into your source code like <% %>
does).
However, I don't think that the lack of helpers is what is causing the
issue... I finished my other project, so I'll be dedicating tomorrow
(Friday) to this and post on here if I figure it out.
You didn't address the suggestion - shouldn't some <%%> be <%= %>?
You didn't address the suggestion - shouldn't some <%%> be <%= %>?
No, all of the <%- -%> should be parsed without any output (it's
interchangeable with <% %>) and all of the <%= %> pairs are doing
output like they should.
Granted, some of the <%- -%> pairs that I have could be converted to
helpers, but that wouldn't effect the end result (that I know of... am
I missing something else here?).
I have all of my latest code located at www.betablue.net/reports_app/
Everything should be fairly self-explanatory, but the list.rhtml is my
view that I'm doing the AJAX call from. list.rhtml.direct_partial is a
version without the AJAX link which just renders the graph directly
(using render :partial => 'graph') and the two HTML files are the
rendered result of each version of list.rhtml (AJAX and a direct render
:partial).
Obviously, the HTML won't work on this public server since I don't have
rails running on this one, but you can at least see what I'm talking
about with the JavaScript being stripped.
I might get rails running on an external server (it's internal right
now) this weekend and post that link if I'm still having problems.
Thanks again for everybody's help so far. I've really appreciated all
your suggestions.
Well, it appears that the generated JavaScript from that is what was
removing the JavaScript from my _graph.rhtml file. I stopped using the
above code and switched to MochiKit's AJAX implementation and it
started working fine.
I'm going to do some more testing because it doesn't make much sense to
me, but that's what it looks like anyway...