The calendar is gone.
Click here to view posts

Rjs partials

I was asked if one can do partial rjs files by a coworker recently. Some of our RJS code is becoming large and difficult to maintained. I figured why should RJS be different then the other templates. So I started up my test rails application. This is very filled with 1/2 crazy ideas and 1/2 unsure syntax examples. So I added two calls rjs1 and rjs2. I created a link_to_remote[1] on rjs1 pointing to rjs2. I did nothing in rjs2 but created an rjs2.rjs file in side of my views directory. My rsj2.rjs file looks like

page.replace_html "one","one"
page<<"#{render(:partial=>"moo")}"

_moo.rjs looks like

page.replace_html "two","two"

I understand that render will return the JavaScript of the rjs rendering. I also understand that I need to use page<< to append the JavaScript to the call like I would use <%= %> in an RHTML file. Would appear to work, but it seems off.

What I do not understand is why firebug[2] only shows me the first replace call in the response.

try {
Element.update("one", "one");
} catch (e) { alert('RJS error:\n\n' + e.toString()); alert('Element.update(\"one\", \"one\");'); throw e }

What it is close to what I expect to but not complete. This is what I think I should see:

try {
Element.update("one", "one");
try {
Element.update("two", "two");
} catch (e) { alert('RJS error:\n\n' + e.toString()); alert('Element.update(\"two\", \"two\");'); throw e }
} catch (e) { alert('RJS error:\n\n' + e.toString()); alert('Element.update(\"one\", \"one\");'); throw e }

Note the nested try catch is only there because of the rjs debug setting. So I changed debug to false and restarted the server. I now see this in firebug:

Element.update("one", "one");
Element.update("two", "two");

I am happy because this can help clean out view logic from the controller RJS calls, but I am also concerned that the improper display in firebug[3] can have a negative impact on developing JavaScript. I am also thinking that this can be done in a different way.



[1] http://api.rubyonrails.org/classes/ActionView/Helpers/PrototypeHelper.html [2] http://www.getfirebug.com/ [3] Firebug display issue

Tags: rails rjs ruby