Is RJS highly used by Rails developers? (learning RJS versus just going to jQuery or Protype)

Hi,
Question - If I’m starting to use Rails javascript/ajax helpers but want
to
start doing some more custom/complex Ajax/Javascript should I learn RJS
as
part of moving forward? (or alternatively just look to either diving
into
jQuery or Prototype/Scriptaculous?)

Tks


Greg
http://blog.gregnet.org/

I think that if you will be doing complex javascript stuff then you
should dig into jQuery (or another js library) since you have to know
your tool very well.

Rails’s javascript helpers are useful but they shield you from having
to know the javascript part. That can be an advantage when you need
something really fast but on the long-term you’d be better off writing
javascript yourself. Plus, the helpers “pollute” the html markup with
javascript code which is not very nice.

Balint

On Feb 19, 12:30 pm, Greg H. [email protected]

Greg H. wrote:

Hi,
Question - If I’m starting to use Rails javascript/ajax helpers but want
to
start doing some more custom/complex Ajax/Javascript should I learn RJS
as
part of moving forward? (or alternatively just look to either diving
into
jQuery or Prototype/Scriptaculous?)

We use Prototype for its amazing simplicity in sortable lists, and
jQuery for some other stuff not covered by Prototype like embedding
Flowplayer in our pages.


Training videos for distance learners: http://www.digiprof.fr

When my AJAX application got complex, I decided it was best to
separate the HTML view from the Ruby controller code as much as
possible. All AJAX calls were modified to respond with JSON data, and
the page updates were coded in static javascript functions. I haven’t
used jQuery, we used ExtJS to great effect. You’ll want to use
something, otherwise you will have to deal with cross-browser
compatibility yourself.

2009/2/20 kevin cline [email protected]

You’ll want to use something, otherwise you will have to deal with
cross-browser
compatibility yourself.

Kevin - can I ask what you meant by this exactly? didn’t quite
understand
this last line of yours. Also running with your approach does this mean
you
drop use of the Rails helpers (e.g. remote_form_for, etc)?

Since you’re on the subject of jQuery, would you mind helping me with
something? I am trying to add new file_fields using a link so I can
add more Asset objects to my Project. I know how to generate files,
and tried it substituting the id numbers with a variable that
increased, etc. But then I realized I wasn’t creating actual objects
so these new fields wouldn’t save!

So now I am sort of stuck. Here is what I am working with (new view,
and partial). How can I get that partial to generate using jQuery?

http://pastie.org/private/gqhqxwzsh220zzhwhbvw

On Feb 19, 11:47 am, Frederick C. [email protected]

On 19 Feb 2009, at 11:30, Greg H. wrote:

Hi,

Question - If I’m starting to use Rails javascript/ajax helpers but
want to start doing some more custom/complex Ajax/Javascript should
I learn RJS as part of moving forward? (or alternatively just look
to either diving into jQuery or Prototype/Scriptaculous?)

Personally I feel that rjs can be a bit of a crutch as there is only
so much it can do (or some things that it doesn’t do as well as using
raw js).
I found The prototype & scriptaculous book (Christophe P.)
very useful, mainly because it showed me that javascript doesn’t have
to be horrible. It sort of depends what you’re going to be doing
really - you can probably carrying with rjs if you’re just using the
odd scriptaculous effect or ajax request, but you usually can do those
things in a cleaner way with a bit more knowledge of JS. In my case we
have quite a lot of javascript which would have been hellish (and hard
to test) with rjs (we have a variety of javascript classes which
encapsulate the behaviour of a particular ‘widget’ on the screen)

Fred