The following code snippet allows you to update multiple DOM elements
in a single Ajax call in Rails (1.1):
pass in a hash of domid=>template name
def update_many(options)
render :update do |page|
options.each do |k,v|
page.replace_html k, render(:partial=>v)
page.visual_effect :highlight, k
end
end
end
So, if you wanted to update the preview div from the content partial,
and the status div from the status partial, you could now say:
update_many ‘preview’=>‘content’, ‘status’=>‘status’
Notice that I appear to be breaking the rules, in that I am calling
render multiple times (once for each item in the option hash). I
expected to have to call render_to_string instead, but that blows up,
and this works fine.
Is this behavior by design, or a coincidence? I?d like to get this
documented and make sure that it is considered a feature.
Regards,
Stuart Halloway
www.relevancellc.com
P.S. Is there a totally better way to do this that I missed? 