Auto_complete_field help

Rails
1

Not sure what I am doing wrong. Here is what i am trying to do (code
to follow).

I have a form to create a new book. This book can have many authors
and I wanted to be able to add the authors based on if they appear in
the authors table. I originally was going about it a long and arduous
way where I had several forms. After thinking about it I decided to
dynamically add new fields to the form for the authors. To do this I
created an action that renders a partial which is just a
text_field_tag to the form. But I want this text field to use
autocomplete. Here is the code (hope it explains better what I am
trying to do)

#View

This is the first link when the form is first generated there are

no text fields for authors (it is not required to add one)

<%= link_to_remote(“Add”, :url => {:controller => “book”, :action =>
“ajax_add_credit_to_form”, :credit_number => 0}) %>

Controller

#This action figures out if it is the first time I am adding an
author or subsequent times after that and than either adds the UL or
just inserts

a new li

def ajax_add_credit_to_form
@credit_number = (params[:credit_number]).to_i
render :update do |page|
if @credit_number == 0
page.replace_html ‘credits_list’, :partial =>
‘new_credit_field’
else
page.insert_html :bottom, ‘the_credit_list’, :partial =>
‘new_credit_field’
end
end
end

Partial

This is where I am running into issues

<% if @credit_number == 0 %>



  • <%= text_field_tag("#{@credit_number}creator", nil, {:size =>
    ‘15’}) %>
    <%= auto_complete_field("#{@credit_number}creator", :url =>
    {:action => “auto_complete_for_author_name”}, :with => “#
    {@credit_number}creator”) %>
    <%= link_to_remote(“Add”, :url => {:controller => “book”, :action
    => “ajax_add_credit_to_form”, :credit_number => (@credit_number +
    1)}) %> 
    	</li>
</ul>

    <% else %>


  • <%= text_field_tag("#{@credit_number}creator", nil, {:size =>
    ‘15’}) %>
    <%= auto_complete_field("#{@credit_number}creator", :url =>
    {:action => “auto_complete_for_author_name”}, :with => “#
    {@credit_number}creator”) %>
    <%= link_to_remote(“Add”, :url => {:controller => “book”, :action
    => “ajax_add_credit_to_form”, :credit_number => (@credit_number +
    1)}) %>

    • <% end %>

    In my controller I have the following set at the top:

    auto_complete_for :author, :name

    But when I load the page in the browser and I click on add for the
    first time I get the following error in firebug:

    missing variable nameprototype.js?1144376… (line 181)
    var 0creator_auto_completer = new Ajax.Autocompleter(‘0creator’,
    ‘0creator_auto_complete’, ‘/issue/auto_complete_for_author_name’,
    {callback:function(element, value) { return 0creator }})

    Any thoughts? I can’t use the text_field_with_autocomplete because I
    could have multiple fields with the same name which wont work. I
    think I am on the right track but can not figure out what I am doing
    wrong. I am pretty sure it is the auto_complete_field tag and I have
    tried it a couple of different ways, one way was completely removing
    teh :with option but I received the same error.

    Thanks for the help

    Andrew