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RJS Templates: Adding Some Ajax Goodness to Rails

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This creates an ‘rjstest’ directory containing your initial web application:

Creating the Web Page You Will Use to Test the RSJ Template

Within the rails application, the models, views, and controllers of the application live in the ‘app’ directory. Your intention is to create a simple web page that you can test out a sample RJS template. So, begin by creating the page that will you will use to test the RJS Template functionality. Create a file ‘index.rhtml’ in the ‘app/views/rjs’ directory. This will be the default page Rails will serve up to the browser when a URL of ‘http://localhost:3000/rjs/’ is requested from your web browser. Edit the ‘index.rhtml’ file and add the following:

<html>

<head>

<title>RJS Template Test</title>

</head>

<body>
   <h1>RJS Template Test</h1>


   <%= javascript_include_tag :defaults %>


   <%= link_to_remote("Test out RJS!",
       :url =>{ :controller => "rjs", :action => "hello" }) %>
</body>
</html>

The HTML should be familiar, but the rails method calls within the <%= and %> tags need some explanation. The javascript_include_tag directive is a built-in Rails method that tells the layout to use the Rails JavaScript libraries. The link_to_remote method is actually a helper method available in the Rails ActionView::Helpers::PrototypeHelper module. This module provides a set of helpers for calling Prototype JavaScript functions, including functionality to call remote methods using Ajax. It returns a link to a remote action defined by the ‘url’ parameter. The remote action is called in the background using XMLHttpRequest. The result of that request then can be inserted into a DOM object whose ID can be specified via the ‘update’ parameter. Your specific method call tells Rails to use Ajax to invoke the ‘hello’ action of your ‘rjs’ controller. You do not specify any ‘update’ parameter because you are not updating the DOM in this example.

Creating the Controller and View

Generate a Controller and View for your test. This controller will be the one defining the action defined in your ‘link_to_remote’ call specified in the RHTML file. You will be using a controller names ‘rjs’. Issue the commands below to create the Controller and View:

You should now have an ‘rjs_controller.rb’ file in the ‘app/controllers’ directory and a ‘views/rjs’ directory. Edit the ‘rjs_controller.rb’ file and add an empty ‘hello’ method:

class RjsController < ApplicationController

def hello

end

end

This method is empty because you are not passing anything on to the view, but are allowing your RJS Template to do its magic.

Creating the RSJ Template

To create your RJS template, you need to create a file named ‘hello.rjs’ in the ‘appsviewsrjs’ directory. Edit the file to look like the following:

page.alert "Hello from RJS!"

This will use the JavaScript alert method to print the message “Hello from RJS!”. You, however, can add any JavaScript commands or an RJS file.

Testing RSJ

Start your ‘rjstest’ application and point your browser to ‘http://localhost:3000/rjs/’. You will see the following:

Click on the ‘Test out RJS’ link and you will see the following:

Your ‘hello.rjs’ RJS template was invoked via the ‘hello’ action of the ‘rjs’ controller and printe the alert message. Simple, isn’t it?

Updating the DOM with RJS

Now, use RJS to update the DOM of the RHTML page. Modify the ‘index.rhtml’ file to look like this:

<html>

<head>

<title>RJS Template Test</title>

</head>

<body>
   <h1>RJS Template Test</h1>


   <%= javascript_include_tag :defaults %>

   <div id="rjs">I will be updated.</div>

   <%= link_to_remote("Test out RJS!",
       :url =>{ :controller => "rjs", :action => "hello" }) %>

</body>

</html>

Notice that you added a div containing some text. Update the ‘hello.rjs’ file to look like this:

page.replace_html "rjs", "<b>See!</b>"

Now, start your ‘rjstest’ application and point your browser to ‘http://localhost:3000/rjs/’. You will see the following:

Click on the ‘Test out RJS’ link and you will see the following:

You have updated DOM for the page, which changed the “I will be updated” text to “See!” in bold.

Conclusion

This fourth article in my Ruby on Rails series has shown you how to use the RJS Template feature of Rails to add Ajax functionality to your Rails application. Ajax and Rails together are a powerful combination, and can not only enhance the user experience of your Rails application, but also increase performance because fewer page reloads are necessary to perform tasks. With Ajax and Rails, you are well on your way to joining the Web 2.0 world.

References

About the Author

Dominic Da Silva (http://www.dominicdasilva.com/) is the President of SilvaSoft, Inc., a software consulting company specializing in Java-, Ruby-, and .NET-based web and web services development. He has worked with Java since the year 2000 and is a Linux user from the 1.0 days. He is also Sun Certified for the Java 2 platform. Born on the beautiful Caribbean island of Trinidad and Tobago, he now makes his home in sunny Orlando, Florida.

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