Tricky issue - AJAX + form text fields + sortable_list

Rails
1

I have a custom form builder that has a question type of “rank order.”
That is where you rank the choices in order from 1-5, or whatever. So I
have the answer choices set up as a sortable list that has a text field
with the order position. Using AJAX, I can change the order of these
answers AND update the text fields with the proper numerical rank.

The problem is that when the form is POST submitted, it does not use the
AJAX-updated values in the text fields but the original values from the
page load DESPITE the text fields being different. If I manually change
the field by typing, it POSTs correctly. How can I force the form to
grab the “fresh” values from the text fields on submittal?

Thanks in advance!

2

Taylor S. wrote:

grab the “fresh” values from the text fields on submittal?
What browser are you using, what code are you using to set the
field contents, and what version of Prototype are you using?

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3

Mark Reginald J. wrote:

Taylor S. wrote:

grab the “fresh” values from the text fields on submittal?
What browser are you using, what code are you using to set the
field contents, and what version of Prototype are you using?

I had tested this on FF3. I went back with Safari to test it and it was
working. So I went back with FF3 and it is ALSO working. Perhaps the
bugfix was a side effect of some code changes today. Thanks for
responding!

As far as my methodology, I have Answers with variable “position.” On
the ajax update, I build a new list of text_fields with ‘value =
@answer.position.’ This allows both drag and drop and manual sorting
with no code changes. The sortable_list java will silently fail on
non-java browsers and the user can just fill in the text boxes as they
wish.