RubyOnRails 2.2 + Jquery UI Sortable & AJAX: This is how I did it. Is there a better way?

Question

In a Rails 2.2 project, I'm having users put together a list of projects into a portfolio object (i.e.: PortfolioHasManyProjects). On the page is a Rails form for regular text, titles etc., as well as 2 sortable lists; the lists are used for dragging projects from the global-project-list into your portfolio-project-list.

It is similar to what's done here: http://ui.jquery.com/latest/demos/functional/#ui.sortable.

I have the portfolio list (#drag_list) updating on change and submitting its serialized data through an AJAX call. This is done in the application.js file:

jQuery.ajaxSetup({ 
  'beforeSend': function(xhr) {xhr.setRequestHeader("Accept", "text/javascript")}
})

jQuery.fn.submitDragWithAjax = function() {
  this.submit(function() {
    $.post(this.action, $("#drag_list").sortable('serialize'), null, "script");
    return false;
  })
  return this;
};

$(document).ajaxSend(function(event, request, settings) {
  if (typeof(AUTH_TOKEN) == "undefined") return;
  // settings.data is a serialized string like "foo=bar&baz=boink" (or null)
  settings.data = settings.data || "";
  settings.data += (settings.data ? "&" : "") + "authenticity_token=" + encodeURIComponent(AUTH_TOKEN);
});


/-------------------------------------------/

$(document).ready(function(){

    $(".ajax_drag").submitDragWithAjax();

    $("#drag_list").sortable({
        placeholder: "ui-selected",
        revert: true,
        connectWith:["#add_list"],
        update : function () {
            $("#drag_list").submit();
        }
    });

    $("#add_list").sortable({ 
        placeholder: "ui-selected",
        revert: true,
        connectWith:["#drag_list"]
    });

Here is where things got tricky. I wasn't sure how to deal with the serialized data and have it submit with the form to the controller in the new.html.erb file. So what I did was have the new.js.erb insert hidden form fields into new.html.erb with the data that I would extract in the controller.

here's the new.js.erb:

$("#projects").html("");
<% r = params[:proj] %>
<% order=1 %>
<% for i in r %>
  $("#projects").append("<input type=hidden name=proj[<%=order%>] value=<%=i%> />");
  <% order=order+1 %>
<% end %>

which edits new.html.erb:

<h1>New portfolio</h1>
<h2>The List</h2>

<div class="list_box">
  <h3>All Available Projects</h3>
  <%= render :partial => "projects/add_list" %>
</div>

<div class="list_box">
  <h3>Projects currently in your new portfolio</h3>
  <%= render :partial => "projects/drag_list" %>
</div>

<div style="clear:both"></div>
<br/>
<br/>

<h2>Portfolio details</h2>
<% form_for(@portfolio) do |f| %>
  <%= f.error_messages %>
  <h3>Portfolio Name</h3>
  <p>
    <%= f.text_field :name %>
  </p>
  <h3>URL</h3>
  <p>
    <%= f.text_field :url %>
  </p>
  <h3>Details</h3>
  <p>
    <%= f.text_area :details %>
  </p>
  <p>

    <div id="projects">
    <input type="hidden" name="proj" value="" />   
    </div>

    <%= f.submit "Create" %>
  </p>
<% end %>

The form then submits to the create method in the portfolio controller:

  def new
    @projects = Project.find(:all)
    @portfolio = Portfolio.new
    respond_to do |format|
      format.html # new.html.erb
      format.xml  { render :xml => @portfolio }
      format.js
    end
  end




 def create
    @portfolio = Portfolio.new(params[:portfolio])
    proj_ids = params[:proj]
    @portfolio.projects = []
    @portfolio.save

    proj_ids.each {|key, value| puts "Key:#{key} , Value:#{value} " }
    proj_ids.each_value {|value| @portfolio.projects << Project.find_by_id(value) }

    respond_to do |format|
      if @portfolio.save
        flash[:notice] = 'Portfolio was successfully created.'
        format.html {  render :action => "index" }
        format.xml  { render :xml => @portfolio, :status => :created, :location => @portfolio }
      else
        format.html { render :action => "new" }
        format.xml  { render :xml => @portfolio.errors, :status => :unprocessable_entity }
      end
    end
  end

---

So finally my question:

1. Is this a proper way of doing this? For some reason I feel it isn't, mostly because doing everything else in Rails seemed so much easier and intuitive. This works, but it was hell to get it to. There has to be a more elegant way of sending serialized data to the controller through AJAX calls.

2. How would I call for different AJAX actions on the same page? Let's say I had a sortable and an autocomplete AJAX call, could I have a sortable.js.erb and autocomplete.js.erb and call them from any file? I'm not sure how to setup the controllers to respond to this.

Answer 1

This is a nice solution if you are using jQuery.

From the linked blog:

I just wrote some sortable code for a Rails/jQuery app and figured I would blog just how little code it takes, and also the single MySQL query I used on the backend.

Answer 2

Here's my solution that is based on the article mentioned by Silviu. I'm sorting parts that belong_to lessons, hence the inclusion of the lessonID.

This is in the view - I'm using HAML so you'll have to convert to erb.

#sorter
- @lesson.parts.each do |part|
  %div[part] <- HAML rocks - this constructs a div <div id="the_part_id" class="part">
    = part_screenshot part, :tiny
    = part.swf_asset.filename

The js looks like this:

    $('#sorter').sortable({items:'.part', containment:'parent', axis:'y', update: function() {
  $.post('/admin/lessons/' + LessonId + '/parts/sort', '_method=post&authenticity_token='+ AUTH_TOKEN+'&'+$(this).sortable('serialize'));
  $('#sorter').effect("highlight");
}});

and here is the method that is called in the PartsController:

def sort
load_lesson
part_positions = params[:part].to_a
@parts.each_with_index do |part, i|
  part.position = part_positions.index(part.id.to_s) + 1
  part.save
end
render :text => 'ok'

end

def load_lesson
@lesson = Lesson.find(params[:lesson_id])
@parts = @lesson.parts

end

It needs some work on giving feedback to the user, but does the trick for me.