Refresh Button on a Rails View - ruby-on-rails

I have a list view in my RoR web app. The view is a result of a scaffold operation.
I want to add a button that will refresh the page. I prefer not to use javascript for this one, is there another way?
Creating a button via button_to or form_tag ends up adding a new blank row in the database when it is clicked.
Thanks!
Shay.

I am going to assume that you are using standard RESTful routes and as a result your form/button_to calls are POSTing to you controller and therefore executing your create action. If that is the case then either of the options you tried should work, but just make sure you are setting the method to "get" so the request is routed to the index action correctly
<%= button_to "Refresh", my_path, :method => :get %>

1) Use a link and dress it up as a button w/ CSS
or
2) Use a form whose method is "get", points to the current page (without any params) as the action and has only one element, a submit button?

Related

doing a updated edit form

I am doing a module using modal windows, where in the index I am showing all the records, saving data, editing and deleting everything using ajax. Pressing the respective buttons in the row of each record opens the modal window depending on the button. But I would like to press the "edit" button to send the log id to the controller, search the data and return it in the modal window. To send the id to the controller should I place a form on each button?
A traditional non-AJAX edit button that you would typically see in a Rails index page would look something like this:
<td><%= link_to 'Edit', edit_thing_path(thing) %></td>
You would need to do three things to AJAX-ify this:
change the link_to so that it sends an AJAX request instead,
get the things_controller#edit method to respond with JSON,
write some JS that picks up the JSON response from the server, and populates it in the modal's form.
An alternative approach, which might be easier, would be to use UJS as recommended by the Rails core team. In this case:
change the link_to to request a JS response
change the controller's edit method to respond by rendering a JS file
build a JS file that renders the modal server, side, and then replaces the current modal in your HTML with the newly-built modal form, and then
reveal the modal in the page
Have a look here in the Rails Guides (for Rails v4.2).
To do that I really like to use Best In place its supper simple to use and implement.
there is also a video on how to use it, its a bit old 302-in-place-editing

How to pass button value from view to controller without using form

I am trying to figure out how can I use the button value from view to corresponding controller. I have three button which I have grouped them. Based on user selection, I want to do different functions (eg: List the task, form to add the tasks..etc). For that I want to pass the button value to the controller.
<div class="btn-group btn-group-justified">
Task Lists
Task Category
Add Task
</div>
I am not sure if there is better way to do this than button groups. I am not familiar with javascript also.
To make it clear, I have user information on the left side of the page which is already designed. These buttons are on the top of the right side of the page. Upon selecting the buttons, right side of the page should change/reloaded based on the selection.
You can try following
<div class="btn-group btn-group-justified">
Task Lists
Task Category
Add Task
</div>
You can use links to go to the controller action you want (if I understand your question correctly). You would use the paths/routes to the specific action you want. It would look something like this:
Task Lists
Or you can do it in rails direction, using the link_to method:
<%= link_to "Task Lists", tasks_lists_path, class: "btn btn-primary" %>
Again, this depends what the routes you are using are. If you want to pass parameters with the link, it gets a bit more complicated, but not much.
For more information: http://api.rubyonrails.org/classes/ActionView/Helpers/UrlHelper.html#method-i-link_to
One option is triggering an ajax post request when the button is clicked and send the data to a particular controller action.
Could also just pass params through a link_to.

Haml: link_to vs button_to

From what I understand, link_to is used for get methods, and button_to is used for post methods.
On the other hand, I was told that with HTML5 semantics, <button> is used for any type of clickable...well, button. In the case I have a clickable button that sends a user to a form to fill out, should I create a button_to or a link_to?
It's simpler that you think.
That methods are Rails helpers and don't have anything to do with haml.
Yes, one method is for get and another for post methods. If you need to post any data to controller, use button_to (for example when deleting a record). Otherwise, link_to is enough.
Moreover, you can make link_to posting data using :method parameter:
= link_to "Something", some_path, :method => :post
Answering your question, use link_to.
The main principle difference between the #link_to, and #button_to is that the #link_to just creates a link tag A, and makes simple AJAX request without an additional data, while #button_to creates a FORM with a custom data, so the form can be used to make extended AJAX request to a webserver. The form data includes embedded CSRF-token, which is used to authentication the request. In case of #link_to CSRF-token must be serualized and send in on_click event.
You should use links to point the user to a resource, like an article.
But you have to tend to use buttons to point to an action(like "Create"/"Send" on your edit page). If this doesn't agree with your interface -- style them like as a link.
Here's why: you cannot point your user to any non-GET action via link_to if he lacks the javascript support. So, buttons are the only options to make your send/destroy action to be triggered in this case.
Feel free to use both approaches if your link points to a page that eventually leads to a modification of a resource (link/button to an edit/create page that shows a form), like in your case.
If you want to simply send a user to somewhere, it is get request. So you should use link_to in this case. By the way, you can use the link_to for post requests and other requests (like button_to too) if you will specify :method. For example: =link_to "some path", some_path, :method => :get

Symfony/Routing: Using POST to Avoid Query Params in URL

I want to pass the id from one action to the next action, but I do not want it seen in the URL. Is there a way to hide it?
Using Symfony, I have created a sign-up done page whose URL should be /signup/done
When the form is processed, I want to redirect to the signupSuccess action and pass the recently created ID for future use. So I use...
$this->redirect('#signup_done?id=' . $sign_up->getId());
The routing is as follows:
signup_done:
url: /signup/done
param: { module: SignUp, action: signupDone }
I have avoided the :id at the end because I don't want it in the URL.
But the resulting URL is /signup/done?id=1
Just as an experiment, I tried putting this on a template.
<?php echo link_to('Sign-up again', '#signup_done?id=1', 'post=true') ?>
Even when using post, the query parameter appears in the URL.
The need is: I want to pass the id from one action to the next action, but I do not want it seen in the URL. Is there a way to hide it?
I set the id as a parameter in the request using $request->setParameter('id', $id) and it was available in the next action.
This kept the URL clean.
If you want to post, you need a form. Back in symfony 1.2 there were helpers that you could call and made you just that - but they were removed for the promotion of promoting good code.
Depending on how you want the 'Sign up again' text to look, you can either create a simple form and a submit button, or create a link, attach a click listener, and create a form there via JS, finally post it.
Any parameter that you pass to the route in url_for, link_to and such end up in the get parameters.

How to create one form with many possible actions in Rails?

I want to create one form with 2 buttons in rails. Both forms operate on the same data in different ways, and I would prefer to keep the associated functionality in two different methods. Previously I've redirected to the appropriate method after doing a string comparision on params[:commit], but my gut says there's a better approach. Suggestions?
Two different submit buttons that send the form to two different actions:
<%= submit_tag('Insert', :onclick=>"document.myForm.action = 'insert';") %>
<%= submit_tag('Update', :onclick=>"document.myForm.action = 'update';") %>
Instead of "myForm" you need to put whatever is in the "name" property of your tag.
You can set that property in your default form:for tag like this:
<%= form_for(#something, :html => {:name => "myForm"}) do |f| %>
Without using JavaScript, your only solution is what you mention: checking which button was clicked by looking at the POST data in the controller. This is simply due to the nature of the HTML form element. It cannot have more than one value for its action attribute.
If you're not worried about what will happen when JavaScript isn't available, then you can write some script to change the action attribute when one of the submit buttons is clicked, prior to actually submitting the form. In the case of an ajax request, it could simply submit to the correct URL directly without altering attributes on the form.
I also used the params[:commit] method on a form already. Using the I18n helpers makes this a bit less fragile as you can use the same lookup in the view and controller, so you don't encounter the problem that the string changes a bit.
Besides that I can only think of using JavaScript to handle the clicks on the buttons and then send the form data to different Rails actions (Maybe you can change the HTML action attribute of the form with JavaScript before you submit the form).
If you're using prototype.js, you can use Form.serialize() to grab your data from your form and from there use the different buttons to post to different actions.

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