how to show a hierarchical list (like Mac Finder/Explorer)

rubyonrails-talk
1

I have a list of Groups with members and sub-groups in an unlimited depth.

It has the same basic structure as a directory listing in either Mac Finder or Windoze Explorer where the files a roughly analogous to my members, and the sub-dirs are analogous to my sub-groups. Just as in Mac Finder, I would like to have it remember the "open-ness" of the dirs/sub-dirs in the db so user will see it the same way on subsequent uses of the app.

Is there some sort of a plugin for displaying this kind of a data set in Rails?

If not, how would you go about designing this? I'm stuck.

thanks, jp

2

Jeff Pritchard wrote:

I have a list of Groups with members and sub-groups in an unlimited depth.

Here's one example that might work for you: http://jquery.bassistance.de/treeview/demo/

3

Robert Walker wrote:

Jeff Pritchard wrote:

I have a list of Groups with members and sub-groups in an unlimited depth.

Here's one example that might work for you: http://jquery.bassistance.de/treeview/demo/

Thanks Robert. This looks very interesting. I'm php-challenged, so I will have to study it to figure out how to adapt it to Rails. I don't suppose you've done that before? Have any Rails demo code?

At a minimum, the notion of using <ul> and some fancy css gives me a start.

thanks, jp

4

Jeff Pritchard wrote:

I have a list of Groups with members and sub-groups in an unlimited depth.

It has the same basic structure as a directory listing in either Mac Finder or Windoze Explorer where the files a roughly analogous to my members, and the sub-dirs are analogous to my sub-groups. Just as in Mac Finder, I would like to have it remember the "open-ness" of the dirs/sub-dirs in the db so user will see it the same way on subsequent uses of the app.

Is there some sort of a plugin for displaying this kind of a data set in Rails?

If not, how would you go about designing this? I'm stuck.

Why are you stuck? 2 minutes of Google searching on implementing hierarchical trees in SQL would have led you to the nested-set pattern. Another minute would have led you to the awesome_nested_set plugin for Rails.

thanks, jp

Best,

5

Marnen Laibow-Koser wrote:

Jeff Pritchard wrote:

I have a list of Groups with members and sub-groups in an unlimited depth.

...

Is there some sort of a plugin for displaying this kind of a data set in Rails?

If not, how would you go about designing this? I'm stuck.

Why are you stuck? 2 minutes of Google searching on implementing hierarchical trees in SQL would have led you to the nested-set pattern. Another minute would have led you to the awesome_nested_set plugin for Rails.

thanks, jp

Best, -- Marnen Laibow-Koser http://www.marnen.org marnen@marnen.org

Ok, I'm a moron. I didn't remember ever seeing one. I came here and searched this group for "hierarchical". Got bupkis. Thanks much for making me aware of this new thing called Google. Looks very useful. :wink:

cheers, jp