Hi - I'm trying to enable dynamic filtering of a table in my app, using selection lists and a search box. Here's the basic layout of the table:
# ------------------- # in app/views/products/index.html.erb
<div id="filters"> <%= select :product, :vendor_id, Vendor.find(:all, :order => 'name').collect {|v| [v.name, v.id] }, :prompt => 'select vendor' %> <%= text_field_tag 'query', params['query'] %> </div>
<table id="ptable"> <tr> <th>Product</th> <th>Vendor</th> <th>Stocked?</th> </tr> <%= render :partial => 'product', :collection => @products %> </table>
<% observe_field 'query', :update => 'ptable', :url => { :action => 'filter' }, :with => 'query' }
# ------------------- # in app/views/products/_product.html.erb <tr> <td><%=h product.name %></td> <td><%=h product.vendor.name %></td> <td> <% if product.stocked? %> YES <% else %> NO <% end %> </td> </tr>
# ------------------- # in app/controllers/product_controller.rb
def filter cond = ["name LIKE ?", "%#{params[:query]%"] unless params[:query].nil? @products = Product.find(:all, :conditions => cond) render :partial => 'product', :collection => @products if request.xml_http_request? end
(this is based on a great tutorial found at How to paginate, sort and search a table with Ajax and Rails · dev.nozav.org)
So far I only got the text box to respond filter the table, and even there my header row disappears when I do that.
So, instead of observe_field I thought of using observe_form and tying my controls in a remote_form_for so that I could call the 'filter' action with the changes. I played with it for a while and couldn't get it to work, mostly because I'm not sure how to construct my remote_form_for block with current controls (I try form_remote_for(@product) but get an :id error), and also don't know how I can send all the parameters to the filter action.
Another question is more about staying DRY - how can I generalize this solution so that I could reuse it throughout my app with multiple tables (instead of adding filter action to every controller).
I would really be grateful for any help.