I am slowly learnng ROR and wondering if anyone can point me in the
general direction to go with the following problem.
User is filling out a form (question model) and needs to leave the page
to select an image from a gallery (picture model). When the user
selects and saves the image they are redirected back to the original
form. How is this done without reloading the question form and losing
the data? Is there a standard for doing this? I have considered saving
when leaving page and redirecting to edit/update form but cant save data
unless all fields filled out due to validation.
I am having fun learning Rails so even a clue as to direction to take
would be helpful. I'm happy to spend the time figuring out the
details...
Well, you can put what the user entered in the session, which you should really be careful about--you really shouldn't store a lot of data in the session, so this is kind of a quick and dirty hack suggestion.
You can have a table for partially-filled forms, which is not subject to validation, and save to that during editing, and move data from there to the "real" table on commit.
You can add an "in-progress" flag to your table, and check that during validation.
In both of the latter cases, you need a timestamp and some process to purge data that results from abandoned sessions.