Rails: How to change this link into a button? - ruby-on-rails

Question

Right now I can call a method using ajax (:remote=> 'true') at awisprotect_path by simply clicking on the "x" in this link
<%= link_to "x",
awisprotect_path,
:remote => true,
:method => :post,
%>
The controller action renders jquery so the response is included into the html in the view
<div class="awishanswer">
</div>
That's all working fine. However, instead of having an "x" to click, I wanted the user to click a button and get the same result. So I essentially just wanted to put the link info
<%= link_to "x",
awisprotect_path,
:remote => true,
:method => :post,
%>
into this button
<button class="btn small primary" >
check
</button>
So I created this form and put it in a partial
<%= form_tag(:controller => "sessions", :action => "awisprotect", :remote => true, :method => "post") do %>
<button type="submit" class="btn small secondary">check awis</button>
<% end %>
but the problem is that the controller action that renders js is not putting the result of the action into the html div. Instead, it's redirecting to a blank page and then printing the jquery method with the result that I was checking for with the controller action. the blank page just shows this...
$('div.awishanswer').html(' html to be inserted in div');
Can anyone explain?
In the url it says
http://localhost:3000/awisprotect?method=post&remote=true

Answer 1

in the view file
<div class="awishanswer" id="awishanswer">
<% form_remote_tag :url => {:controller => "sessions", :action => "awisprotect"},
:html => {:method => "post"}, :update => "awishanswer" do %>
<input type="submit" class="btn small primary" value="check" />
<% end %>
</div>
in the action
def awisprotect
#flag = params[:flag] // suppose sending parameter flag from form
// do something
render :partial => 'partial file containing html to send to view'
end
The form will be submitted when the submit button is clicked.
the action will send the html contained in partial file.
the form will update the div with id provided in form with the html code send back from action.
EDIT:partial file
<%if #flag%>
// include some html
<%else%>
// include some other html
<%end%>

Answer 2

The reason your getting a problem is probably because of your usage of the form_tag helper uses the :remote and :method values inside the url generation instead of being handled be the form. The correct usage would probably be like this:
<%= form_tag({:controller => "sessions", :action => "awisprotect"},
:remote => true,
:method => "post")
However, Rails already has a helper method to create a button to submit data called button_to. It basically takes the exact same arguments as the link_to helper so I would probably use it like this in your case:
<%= button_to "x", awisprotect_path, :remote => true, :method => :post %>
The :method argument could possibly even be left out because I think the button_to helper defaults to the POST protocol.

Answer 3

You can disguise a link as a button, using some CSS. Here's a nice article.
This might be better than all these experiments with partials and forms. :-)

Answer 4

I'm thinking you didn't wrap the options for form_tag properly. Try something like this:
form_tag( { :controller => :sessions, :action => :awisprotect, :method => post }, { :remote => true } ) do ....
It may or may not also help to use button_tag.