Need remote_function help

rubyonrails-talk
1

This is the first time I have used remote_function and I'm unclear on why my code is not working as I would expect.

I am trying to have my select box load the specified action and pass a few params to it when an item is selected.

Here's an outtake of the code I have:

<% form_for(@order) do |f| %>   <%= select(:state, :state, [['Alabama', 'AL'], ... ['Wyoming', 'WY']], {},   html_options = {:onchange => remote_function(:url => {:action => "new", :id => 74}, :with => "'state_test='+this.value", :method => :get)} ) %> <% end %>

I want it to call OrdersController#show, and according to my dev log it actually is, and it's passing all the desired params as well. Here's a log entry:

Processing OrdersController#show (for 127.0.0.1 at 2009-05-03 20:11:13) [GET]   Session ID: a612ff378ef73097a30185e62e9ab64b   Parameters: {"state_test"=>"NY", "action"=>"show", "authenticity_token"=>"b3ad00a2fdc2c467fcea159623d20470cfa54f8c", "id"=>"74", "controller"=>"orders"}   Order Columns (47.0ms) SHOW FIELDS FROM `orders`   Order Load (81.0ms) SELECT * FROM `orders` WHERE (`orders`.`id` = 74) Rendering template within layouts/orders Rendering orders/show Completed in 141ms (View: 7, DB: 129) | 200 OK [http://localhost/ orders/74? state_test=NY&authenticity_token=b3ad00a2fdc2c467fcea159623d20470cfa54f8c]

According to the log this thing should be working I'd think. But no matter what action I target the view never refreshes or is changed.

What am I doing wrong?

Thanks, Elliott

2

Since I am not rendering an rjs template what would this be? I just want the show.html.erb template to draw out in its entirety.

Thanks

3

Since I am not rendering an rjs template what would this be? I just want the show.html.erb template to draw out in its entirety.

you need to pass the id of a dom element where the render results will be placed.

Fred

4

Elliott Golden wrote:

Since I am not rendering an rjs template what would this be? I just want the show.html.erb template to draw out in its entirety.

Thanks

<%= select(:state, :state, [['Alabama', 'AL'], ... ['Wyoming', 'WY']], {},   html_options = {:onchange => remote_function(:url => {:action => "new", :id => 74}, :with => "'state_test='+this.value", :method => :get)} ) %>

This is the first time I've seen the remote_function method but this is what I think is happening. Your code creates an html <select> tag. The html_options variable is used to write attributes into the <select> tag, e.g.

<select id="hello" class="cool_css" onchange="javascript function call">

So your code adds an onchange attribute to the <select> tag, which calls a javascript function. You've also given the particulars for the javascript function to construct a request to send to the server when the javascript function gets called. Then the server will send the results back to the javascript function. So you need to tell the javascript function where you want the results to be inserted on the page. Javascript doesn't automatically do anything with the results. That is what the :update parameter for remote_function does--it tells the javascript function what to do with the results, i.e. insert the results in the specified tag.

I just want the show.html.erb template to draw out in its entirety.

So you want to replace the whole page? What if you specified the id of the <body> tag? If all the layout stuff gets added to the template, I don't think that will work--you'd end up with another DOCTYPE tag, etc. inside the <body> tag making your html a mess.

In addition, when you need to replace the whole page, you don't use javascript to make an ajax request to the server. It sounds like you need something like the following inside your <select> tag:

<select onchange="window.location.href = '/show?id=74&state_test=' + this.value ">

I'm a beginner, so I don't know if rails can do that for you. You might have to write that by hand doing something like this:

<%= select(:state, :state, [['Alabama', 'AL'], ... ['Wyoming', 'WY']], {},

html_options = { :onchange => "window.location.href = '/show?id=74&state_test=' + this.value " }

%>

5

Thanks 7Stud!

That worked, nice and simple.

Elliott