Helpers

Rails
1

I have the following helper (see below) with two calls to
observe_field. In the viewer, the helper is used
according to:

<%= observe_slider ‘time’, 0.1, ‘display_full_size’, “slider_val”,
u[1] %>

Only the second call to observe_field is acted up. If I invert the
order of the calls in the helper,
then it is still the second call to observe_field that works. It is as
if the second call was overwriting
the first. I found a similar behavior in the viewer before using the
helper. If I wrapped each call
to observe_field in <%= %> tags, they both worked. However, if I
wrapped both calls into a single
<%= %>, only the second one worked. Does any on of you have any
ideas?

Thanks,

Gordon

=====================
Helper:

def observe_slider(id, freq, img_id, local_var, url)
# :idd variable name is hardcoded. Should not be.
observe_field( “#{id}_h”,
:frequency => freq,
:update => “#{img_id}_hide”,
:with => local_var,
:complete => “update_time(request)”,
:url => { :action => “#{img_id}”, :idd => url })

# I cannot have two observe_field statements. The second one
# seems to overwrite the first one. Do now know why
# WHY, WHY!!!


observe_field( "#{id}",
     :update => "#{img_id}_hide",
     :with => local_var,
     :complete => 'update_time(request)',
   :url => { :action => "#{img_id}", :idd => url } )

end

2

i believe because observe_field writes to the output stream, you need
to capture its output like

def observe_slider(id, freq, img_id, local_var, url)
# :idd variable name is hardcoded. Should not be.
str = observe_field( “#{id}_h”,
:frequency => freq,
:update => “#{img_id}_hide”,
:with => local_var,
:complete => “update_time(request)”,
:url => { :action => “#{img_id}”, :idd => url })

str << observe_field( "#{id}",
     :update => "#{img_id}_hide",
     :with => local_var,
     :complete => 'update_time(request)',
   :url => { :action => "#{img_id}", :idd => url } )
return str

end

3

I think you’re on the right track. The issue appears to be that the
helper is just like any other method call – you’re going to receive
back whatever the method returns and it’s results are then going to be
added to the page. In the original code the return value, since it’s
not explicitly stated, will be the result of the last method call
which is always the last observe_field call. That’s why it appears
that the last call is “overwriting” the previous call(s).

@jemminger’s recommendation will work because observe_field will
return a string and when you concat the strings you can return the
cumulative result and then render that into the page.

AndyV

4

Thanks guys. The suggestion worked!

Gordon