RHTML and innerHTML problem

rubyonrails-talk
1

Hi,

I am trying to render RHTML code using a JavaScript function and innerHTML.

However, the code is shown as plain text but is not rendered.

function makeLiveTree() {   var rhtmlCode = "<"+"%= live_tree :fstree, ...%>";   document.getElementById('westContent').innerHTML = rhtmlCode; }

output is: <%= live_tree :fstree, ...%>

How do I render RHTML using JS? For this problem I cannot use RJS.

Thanks for your time, Tom.

2

Tom,

If I understand you correctly, you are trying to create some dynamic tree in the browser page. The way you want to do it won't work because whatever your JS code generates, this is the client side, the page loaded into the user's browser, and there's no Rails there to evaluate it.

Use Rails Ajax capabilities, it's really simple. Read about methods ActionView::Helpers::PrototypeHelper, methods which have the word 'remote' in their names. Instead of JS generating new content for your page there will be partial templates which will be evaluated and the output will be inserted into your page automagically without reloading it.

Cheers, Yuri

3

You can't render RHTML using JS. Your RHTML files are processed on the server, and then the resulting HTML is sent to the browser. Your JavaScript code runs in the browser, so if you generate RHTML in the browser, it will not be processed.

If you need to request new live content from the server, then you will have to use some kind of AJAX, whether or not you specifically use RJS to do it.

Or, if the output of "live_tree :fstree" can be generated at the same time as the overall page, then just render it as normal, into a hidden div or a JavaScript variable, or something like that. Then the output of "live_tree :fstree" will be in the browser when the page loads, and you can then use JavaScript to display it as necessary.

Chris

4

It's impossible - JS is client side technology and rhtml is server side. Ruby server can generate JavaScript code and send it to client but client cannot send code to server to execute (first of all it would be dangerous). You can try do it inside rhtml page: function makeLiveTree() {   document.getElementById('westContent').innerHTML = <%= live_tree :fstree %> }

Regards

5

Hi Chris,

thanks for clarifying that!

The output of "live_tree :fstree" actually _IS_ rendered when the overall page is loaded. My problem is that I need to _reload_ the fstree everytime a user creates a new file. The code I posted is just to test "reloading"...

I tried to reload live_tree using "render :partial". Its output is rendered, however the whole layout of my site gets broken, all CSS is gone, Firebugs throws millions of errors... If I set ":layout => false" nothing is rendered If I set ":layout => 'myDefaultLayout'", everything breaks apart.

Any idea? Thanks for your help! Tom.

6

Hi Yuri,

thanks for the clarification! And you do understand me right :wink:

This rhtml/innerhtml thing actually was only to test "reloading" the tree.

I am able to generate and render the tree but only when the whole page is loaded. What I wanna do is reload just the tree, not the whole page.

I tried to use "render :partial" but that did not work.

using ":layout => 'myDefaultLayout'" obviously cannot work. setting layout to false breaks the whole layout. This is because "live_tree" tries to expand as much as possible. the author recommends to use a surrounding div with height and width specified, however that does not work for me.

Thanks for your time. Tom.