Rails 3's rails.js should offer Ajax.Updater

rubyonrails-talk
1

Hey,

I have a form on a website that I would like to be submitted remotely - to not have to reload the whole page. Only the form should update, so that e.g. error messages can be displayed. Makes sense :slight_smile:

However, with the current rails.js javascript in Rails 3, the only way to do this is using

form_for ... :remote => true

and then render a RJS in the controller, which will do... what? Try to puzzle the form values and error messages into the invalid form?

Instead, I came up with this spontaneous extension to rails.js: http://gist.github.com/385167

With something as easy as

form_tag ... :html => { 'data-update' => 'div_with_the_form_to_be_updated' }

I can now have the controller render HTML to update the form when it has errors, and still RJS if I would like to do some fancy stuff in case the submission was successful.

I assume this feature should be included in rails.js. It would take just a few lines of smart modification.

In the far future, ActionView might even be modified to implement the good ol'

form_tag ... :update => 'div_to_be_updated'

I would love to hear your opinion about this. All the best!