Can I add text to page-source dynamically in Ruby on Rails - ruby-on-rails

I would like to add text dynamically to the page source in a particular view. I checked the IO streams, but couldn't find anything. Could you please provide some pointers.
Edit:
Thanks for the reply. I was trying to know how much time each part/component in a particular view takes to render and log it as part of the page-source. Please let me know if I am not clear enough.

You can use JavaScript to modify the Document Object Model (DOM) of a page after Rails has rendered the view. If you edit your question to make it more specific then we can give more specific answers.

Related

Evaluating content of liferay-ui:message in liferay-ui:input-editor

I want to use liferay-ui:input-editor in order to place content, but when I want to have content using the liferay-ui:message tag, I don't know how to do it, since it's generating html content and the liferay-ui:message is evaluated in server.
I thought about writing an i18n custom plugin for the CKEditor that will get the proper content once I "OK" it, but before I dive in to that, I wanted to check first if that is the only solution.
BTW - I know about the liferay-ui:input-localized, but for my purposes I need to use that message tag only.
Thank you :)

rails encapsulate tags in textfield

I would like to know how to implement a textfield for TAGS in ROR?
like the ones used in stack overflow, or at emails where you type a text and after you hit space it capsules it.
I would appreciate any gem or any info about the matter.
example1:
example2:
Thanks
Please have a look at chosen.
I.e. give the multi-select example a try.
Add the "chzn-select" class to the multi-select requiring the tagging behavior.
And in your javascript, invoke the chosen initialization method, $(".chzn-select").chosen();

From db to css file?

I have a small set of css items in a db table that I need to turn into a css file to be included on a page. How can I do this in Rails3?
Is there a way I can call this directly from a stylesheet_link tag? Do I need to go through some ruby to open a file and output it in some directory first? Do I do this in a controller?
The css is actually its own model associated to the item using the css.
I do not know and looking for a solution found little yet, so asking here.
EDIT:
Simple when looked at, I was looking toward a sass or less solution and may still, but this is a simple start
I would create a Controller that retrieves the data from the database that uses a View to render the data to a Cascading Style Sheet.
You could then reference the given URL whenever you need to use the resulting stylesheet.
This is the easiest way that I have found http://blog.hasmanythrough.com/2007/10/18/simpler-than-dirt-restful-dynamic-css

How to create a tagging system like on Stack Overflow or Quora

I want to create a tagging system like seen here on Stack Overflow or on Quora. It'll be its own model, and I'm planning on using this autocomplete plugin to help users find tags. I have a couple of questions:
I want tags to be entirely user-generated. If a user inputs a new tag by typing it and pressing an "Add" button, then that tag is added to the db, but if a user types in an existing tag, then it uses that one. I'm thinking of using code like this:
def create
#video.tags = find_or_create_by_name(#video.tags.name)
end
Am I on the right track?
I'd like to implement something like on Stack Overflow or Quora such that when you click a tag from the suggested list or click an "Add" button, that tag gets added right above the text field with ajax. How would I go about implementing something like that?
I know this is kind of an open-ended question. I'm not really looking for the exact code as much as a general nudge in the right direction. Of course, code examples wouldn't hurt :)
Note I am NOT asking for help on how to set up the jQuery autocomplete plugin... I know how to do that. Rather, it seems like I'll have to modify the code in the plugin so that instead of the tags being added inside the text field, they are added above the text field. I'd appreciate any direction with this.
mbleigh's acts_as_taggable_on gem is a feature-complete solution that you should definitely look into a little more closely. The implementation is rock-solid and flexible to use. However, it is mostly concerned with attaching tags to objects, retrieving tags on objects, and searching for tagged items. This is all backend server stuff.
Most of the functionality you are looking to change (based on your comments) is actually related more to your front-end UI implementation, and the gem doesn't really do much for you there. I'll take your requests one-by-one.
If user inputs a new tag, that tag
gets added, if user inputs an
existing tag, the existing tag gets
used. acts_as_taggable_on does this.
Click a tag from suggested list to
add that tag. This is an
implementation issue - on the
back-end you'll need to collect the
suggested list of tags, then display
those in your presentation as links
to your processing function.
Autocomplete as user enters
potential tag. You'll use the jQuery
autocomplete plugin against a list
of items pulled off the tags table.
With additional jQuery, you can
capture when they've selected one of
the options, or completed entering
their new tag, and then call the
processing function.
Restrict users to entering only one
tag. This will be your UI
implementation - once they've
entered or selected a tag, you
process it. If they enter two words
separated by a comma, then before or
during processing you have to either
treat it as one tag, or take only
the text up to the first comma and
discard the rest.
When you process the addition of a
tag, you will have to do two things.
First, you'll need to handle the UI
display changes to reflect that a
tag has been entered/chosen. This
includes placing the tag in the
"seleted" area, removing it from the
"available" display, updating any
counters, etc. Second, you'll need
to send a request to the server to
actually add the tag to the object
and persist that fact to the
database (where the taggable gem will take over for you). You can either do this via
an individual AJAX request per tag,
or you can handle it when you submit
the form. If the latter, you'll need
a var to keep the running list of
tags that have been added/removed
and you'll need code to handle
adding/removing values to that var.
For an example of saving tags while editing but not sending to server/db until saving a form, you might take a look at the tagging functionality on Tumblr's new post page. You can add/remove tags at will while creating the post, but none of it goes to the database until you click save.
As you can see, most of this is on you to determine and code, but has very little to do with the backend part. The gem will take care of that for you quite nicely.
I hope this helps get you moving in the right direction.
The more I try to force the acts-as-taggable-on gem to work the more I think these are fundamentally different types of problems. Specifically because of aliases. The gem considers each tag to be its own special snowflake, making it difficult to create synonyms. In some cases it doesn't go far enough, if you want the Tag to have a description you'd need to edit the given migrations (which isn't hard to do).
Here's what I'm considering implementing, given the trouble I've had implementing via the gem. Let's assume you want to create a tagging system for Technologies.
Consider the following psuedo code, I haven't yet tested it.
rails g model Tech usage_count::integer description:text icon_url:string etc. Run the migration. Note the
Now in the controller you will need to increment usage_count each time something happens, the user submits a new question tagged with given text.
rails g model Name::Tech belongs_to:Tech name:string
Name::Tech model
belongs_to :tech
end
Then you could search via something like:
search = Name::Tech.where("name LIKE :prefix", prefix: "word_start%")
.joins(:tech)
.order(usage_count: desc)
.limit(5)
This is starting point. It's fundamentally different from the gem, as each tag is just a string on its own, but references a richer data table on the back end. I'll work on implementing and come back to update with a better solution.

Fill a rails form with a hashmap

I have a difficult situation.
I let the the user create a form through a Rich Text Editor and then I save this.
So for example, I save this literally into my DB:
http://pastebin.com/DNdeetJp (how can you post HTML here? It gets interpreted, so now I use pastebin...)
On another page I wrap this in a form_tag and it gets presented as it should be.
What I want to do is save this as a template and save the answers as a hashmap to my DB.
This works well, but the problem is I want to recreate what checkbox/radiobutton/... is selected when the user goes back to the page. So I want to fill the form with the answers from the hashmap.
Is there a way to use a 'dummy' model or something else to accomplish this?
Thanks!
Since you're pasting in raw HTML which is not properly configured as a template, it is more difficult to enable the proper options based on whatever might be stored in your DB.
The reliable approach to making this work is to use Hpricot or Nokogiri to manipulate the bit of HTML you have and substitute values accordingly. This isn't too hard so long as you can define the elements in that form using a proper selector. For example, create a div with a unique id and operate on all input elements within it, comparing the name attribute with your properties. There may even be a library for this somewhere.
The second approach is to use JavaScript to enable the options in much the same fashion. This seems like a bit of a hack since the form itself will not have a proper default state.

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