Javascript call from view

Hello All,
I am working on a Microblogging application.(majorly written in Ruby
on Rails).(the application is similar to twitter) .There is a timeline
showing messages by the logged-in user and his/her
followers.
Each message has a reply link which has been coded as follows
<%=link_to “Reply” ,{},:href=>"#",:class => “replyMessage
noBackgroundImage” ,:title =>“Click here to
reply”,:onclick=>“popup(‘popUpDiv_reply’)”%>

I have two javascript functions as follows defined seperately in an
application.js file.

function showName(inputName,textName){
var fieldName = document.getElementById(inputName);
document.getElementById(textName).value += ‘@’ + fieldName.value +
‘:’;
}
function decreaseName(inputname){
var fieldName = document.getElementById(inputname);
var totalLength = fieldName.length + 2;
var diff = 400 - totalLength;
return diff;
}

When I click on the reply link,a popup appears which has a text-area
and a post button.Beneath the textarea,appears the number of
characters remaining to be posted.Now when I click the reply link,I
want the showName function to be called so that the person to whom I
am replying is displayed in the text-area as '@username:'Also on the
reply click,my no of characters remaining should be shown as 400 -
@username: for which I have written the decreaseName function.

My reply block in view is as follows.


<%if (message.canpost == ‘Y’) or (message.is_user_default_channel ==
‘Y’) %>

<%=link_to "Reply" ,{},:href=>"#",:class => "replyMessage noBackgroundImage" ,:title =>"Click here to reply",:onclick=>"popup('popUpDiv_reply')",:success=>"showName('postedby','message_reply')"%>
<%=image_tag "/images/ ajax-loader.gif" %>
  
                    </div>
                    </div>
                                  <div style="padding:0px 0px 0px

0px;">




<textarea name=“message_reply”
id=“message_reply” maxlength =“400” style="overflow:auto;width:
100%;height:56px ;"onkeyup="checkPostFieldLength(message,‘remaining’,
400);"onkeydown="checkPostFieldLength(message,‘remaining’,
400);"onmouseout="checkPostFieldLength(message,‘remaining’,
400);“onclick=“showName(‘postedby’,‘message_reply’);”>


400
characters remaining




<%= submit_to_remote
“Post”,” Post ",
:update => “div3”,
:method => “post”,
:condition => “postMessage()”,
:before =>
“resetCharCount(‘remaining’);clearInnerHtml(‘div3’)”,
:loading =>
“Element.show(‘spinnerTimeLineDiv3’)”,
:loaded =>
“clearPostBox(document.getElementById(‘message_reply’));Element.hide(‘spinnerTimeLineDiv3’)”,
:url => {:controller=>“messages”,
:action
=> “post”},
:html => {:class => “btn”, :id =>
“submitButton”,:title=>“Click here to post.”} %>




                        </div>
  <%end%>

I want to know how the two javascript methods can be called from the
view.

Thanks in Advance

Regards
Chandrika

First of all user Jquery it will make everything easier for you, Second
post
the code as a gist so is more readable