What's a smart way

[JannaB]

To do the following…

Suppose I have a list of links in a div of my main template,
application.html.erb.

One of those links, the “administrator” link, needs to be able to
change all the other links, so that a new set of links displays (with
a “Back to application” link therein, to set the links back to the
original way)

I’m trying to figure out a sane and simple way to do this (I am
concocting lots of bad ways to do it!) Please help.

My application.html.erb appears here as:

   <div id="navcontainer">
     <%= links_for_navigation %>
      <div id="Body" >
        <%= yield %>
      </div>
    </div>

and then, in my applicationhelper file, I create the links themselves.
How would you tackle this in an intelligent manner? I am making a mess
of my code trying to do this. -Janna

[JannaB]

Make “administrator” a link_to_remote and use :update:

link_to_remote “Administrator”, :update => ‘Body’ :url => { :action =>
…

[JannaB]

But I want to only change the menu bar on that. This doesnt do that.

[JannaB]

JannaB wrote:

But I want to only change the menu bar on that. This doesnt do that.

Okay, the specifics of your app are not clear to me. If you place your
menu bar in a div (sorry, I guess that div was not “Body”), then you can
swap the contents of the menu bar the same way.

For example, if you have one horizontal menu bar with three items that
all have a drop down or sub-menu attached, you can actually use just
one drop down (or a box containing the active sub-menu). To change
the contents of the active sub-menu (or drop-down), you use
link_to_remote with all the menu bar options, :update’ing the div
containing the sub-menu.

Those links don’t have to be in a separate menu (this I think is closer
to what you are doing); they could be in the same menu. So when you
click on the “administrator” option, the :update refers to the same
div that contains the menu with the administrator option. Then the
entire menu is replaced, and you have a “back to main menu” option which
works the same way. Get it?

[JannaB]

Thank you! Yes, it is the same menu, I am simply trying to replace it.
I dont care what else is on the screen, I just want to flip the menu.
I am getting hung up on the syntax here though, I have:

link_to_remote( ‘Admin’, :update => ‘links_for_navigation’ ,nil )

the specific div where the menu(s) occur are in a div called
‘links_for_navigation’ - but the syntax here of link_to_remote, when
all I want to do is change what is in an individual dic in the
application template, I am unable to discern – the rest of the page
should merely remain the same.

Also, even if I can get the syntax right on this here, how do you set
some kind of variable (session fariable perhaps?) to know within the
ApplicationHelper which of the two menus to display? -Janna, my helper
follows…

module ApplicationHelper

def nav_link_to(name, options, html_options)

  link_to name, options, html_options
end

def links_for_navigation
  tabs = []
  if #I need some value here to determine which menu to

choose!

    tabs << link_to_remote( 'Admin', :update =>

‘links_for_navigation’ ,nil )

    tabs << nav_link_to('Reports', {:controller =>

‘customers’, :action => ‘list’}, {:title => ‘Go to Reports’, :style =>
‘float: right;’})
tabs << nav_link_to(‘Customers’, {:controller =>
‘customers’, :action => ‘list’}, {:title => ‘Manage Customer’, :style
=> ‘float: right;’})
tabs << nav_link_to(‘Scheduler’, {:controller =>
‘projects’, :action => ‘list’}, {:title => ‘Go to Scheduler’, :style
=> ‘float: right;’})
tabs << nav_link_to(‘InOut’, {:controller =>
‘associates’, :action => ‘list’}, {:title => ‘In Out Board’, :style =>
‘float: right;’)
tabs << nav_link_to(‘Uplog’, {:controller =>
‘customers’, :action => ‘list’}, {:title => ‘Access Uplog’, :style =>
‘float: right;’})
else

tabs << link_to_remote( ‘Back to Application’, :update =>
‘links_for_navigation’ ,nil )

    tabs << nav_link_to('Reasons', {:controller =>

‘reasons’, :action => ‘list’}, {:title => ‘Reasons’, :style => ‘float:
right;’})
tabs << nav_link_to(‘Selections’, {:controller =>
‘selections’, :action => ‘list’}, {:title => ‘Selections’, :style =>
‘float: right;’})
tabs << nav_link_to(‘Activities’, {:controller =>
‘activities’, :action => ‘list’}, {:title => ‘Activities’, :style =>
‘float: right;’})
tabs << nav_link_to(‘ActivityTypes’, {:controller =>
‘activitytypes’, :action => ‘list’}, {:title => ‘Activity
Types’, :style => ‘float: right;’})
tabs << nav_link_to(‘Status’, {:controller =>
‘status’, :action => ‘list’}, {:title => ‘Status’, :style => ‘float:
right;’})
tabs << nav_link_to(‘Origins’, {:controller =>
‘origins’, :action => ‘list’}, {:title => ‘Origins’, :style => ‘float:
right;’})
tabs << nav_link_to(‘Associates’, {:controller =>
‘associates’, :action => ‘list’}, {:title => ‘Associates’, :style =>
‘float: right;’})
end
html = ‘

’
tabs.each do |tab|
html += ‘
• ’
  html += tab
  html += ‘
’
end
end

end

[JannaB]

JannaB wrote:

Thank you! Yes, it is the same menu, I am simply trying to replace it.
I dont care what else is on the screen, I just want to flip the menu.
I am getting hung up on the syntax here though, I have:

link_to_remote( ‘Admin’, :update => ‘links_for_navigation’ ,nil )

I can’t help you with the last part as I am quite new to RonR myself,
altho I do have a programming background and can promise that I have
already used link_to_remote to do this kind of menu substitution.

Here’s an example.

The syntax of link_to_remote would be:

link_to_remote “Admin”, :update => 'links_for_navigation,
:url => { :action => :adminmenu }

Then, in your contoller, you have a method “adminmenu”

def adminmenu
# provide variables needed for the menu
@variables
end

and of course you need a matching view which actually constructs the
menu, ie. the “innerHTML” of the menu div:

adminmenu.html.erb

<% @variables.each do |option| %>
<%=link_to_remote option.name, :update => option.target,
:url => option.url%>
<%end%>

That is just a sketch; you can simplify using partials this way:

in the page source:
link_to_remote “Admin”, :update => 'links_for_navigation,
:url => { :action => :render_partial, :partial = “adminmenu” }
a generic method in the controller:
def render_partial
render :partial => params[:partial]
end

Then you just have a bunch of _partials.html.erb for the different
menus. But this last technique, AFAIK, is not standard and someone has
implied there may be a security risk in it, so beware, I’m a ruby newbie
too!

Good luck – MK