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.
Related
It is written in docs, that
The <Field/> will rerender any time the field state it is subscribed to changes.
So, if I'd have several Fields, all of them will be re-rendered, while changing only one of them.
Are there any ways to prevent re-renders of other Fields, that are not changing at the moment?
Yes, that's because your entire form is rerendering. Your question is exactly the reason that Final Form was designed from the ground up to allow fine grained render control.
Here's a video of me explaining it last month.
Check out this example of how to do it.
Another workaround is to use React.memo (react version >= 16.6.0)
Make each input field a separate component an wrap it in memo.
export default React.memo(MyInputComponent);
If you are passing values down to MyInputComponent, pass only the needed prop value not the whole form data object.
<MyInputComponent value={formData.myValue} />
This way the MyInputComponent will re render only if formData.myValue has changed.
For a blog model I'm saving an RSS field as text under Blog.rss, problem is, some of this is rather long and each one prints when I'm working in the rails console, ie: Blog.last(10).
Is there a way to hide output unless I call someblog.rss specifically?
I had a similar problem and received some solutions in another forum, which were:
Use select to get just the columns you need
If you have a very long column (I had JSON data structure from a webhook cluttering the console), consider whether you really need it, and if you don't , don't store it in the table
Or, consider storing it in an associated table
if you need the whole object but just want to change how it's represented in console/log output, you can redefine inspect
yourobject.as_json(except: :unwanted_column)
Also
You could look into: https://github.com/awesome-print/awesome_print
I've read everything I can on forms and such and they never seem to work the way I want them to.
As a work around, I'm trying to pass a series of parameters to my controller via remote: true and javascript. I've got a solid foundation working.
I can't think of a proper way to explain this without getting too crazy, so I'll just explain what I am doing.
Goal-
I have a FlashCard model going. The flash cards each have: Title, lines(7) and a body. The body is represented as the back of the card. The front of the card consists of the title and 7 lines. Each line can be written on individually and optionally centered. The card can be formatted as either read or write. Obviously read is a read-only and write gives you the ability to change whether or not each line is centered, and change/add the text on the title, each line, and the body.
Now. I probably chose a bad way to do this, but it's how I chose to do it. I have an affinity towards arrays so I tend to use those when in doubt.
My flash card model has title:string, line:string as array, and body:text.
The line is formatted as follows: [["",0],["",0],["",0],["",0],["",0],["",0],["",0]]
The strings are the string on each line and the 0's can be either 0 or 1, as false and true- representing whether or not the text on that line is centered.
As far as displaying all of this, I have it working just fine. However- actually saving the data is proving to be a problem. Forms are not working out for me because of the line array/attribute. I don't mind doing the logic myself without the form, but I need a way to pass the data from the text_fields to the controller to save them.
Hopefully that makes sense. If not- I will happily add in the code I have used to get to where I am and more specifically show where I am having problems.
Optimally, I would like to simply pass the strings from multiple text_fields as separate parameters to the controller. If necessary to go back and entirely redo the model, I will do so if it will work as long as I can get the same functionality.
Thanks in advance for the help!
I needed to create a input mask for a jQuery datepicker in my Rails app, where the first form field uses m/d/yy format and the datepicker populates a hidden input with the proper database format.
I was using SimpleForm, and so I extended my own input so that the input is preceded by the mask.
I got everything set up and when checking out the browser, it all just worked well before I thought I would be done.
The form ends up with two inputs for the same attribute, each with the same id and name. I never thought this would work. Checking the development log I only see one date getting submitted, the second of the two which is the one that has the proper format for the database.
Is this all okay? Should I take some extra steps even though this appears to work fine, and more importantly, can someone explain what's going on under the hood that results in this behavior?
Thanks!!
Rails uses the Hash params to store fields submitted. When you declare two or more inputs using the same name, it happens the same as if you do something like
h=Hash.new
h[:name]="foo"
h[:name]="bar"
Result is bar because the foo was overwritten. So the "winner" is always the field value which the browser last appended to postdata.
But if I where you, I would not rely on the browser that the second field gets appended at last.
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.