Link_to_remote can't replace specified element?

Rails
1

I’m having an issue with the design of my views that I can’t seem to
wrap my head around. I have a page where I am showing a collection of
objects in a list. The way that I designed it, it looked something
like this:

main view:

here is the list

    <%= render(:partial => "items/item", :collection => @items %>

collection item’s view:

  • ... INFO ABOUT item....

    • This works great, creating a

      that is full of
    • 's. I hit a
      snag when I start trying to update individual
    • items with ajax
      calls. The :update option for link_to_remote() and related functions
      doesn’t give me an option to replace the dom element that it refers to
      as far as I can tell. It lets me specify a dom id that I can change
      the innerHTML of, insert the returned html with in it at the beginning
      or the end, before or after the element, but it doesn’t seem to allow
      me to REPLACE the element.

      So a call like this:

      remote_function(:url => credential_search_instance_path
      (credential_search_instance),
      :method => :put,
      :update => dom_id(item)
      )

      Will replace the html inside of the

    • element, so it would update
      the page to look like this:
    • ... INFO ABOUT item....

      • I ended up getting around the issue by checking if it is an xhr
      request in my item view like this;
      <% if ! request.xhr? then %>

    • <% end %> ... INFO ABOUT item.... <% if ! request.xhr? then %>
      • <% end %>

      That solution works, but it seems very inelegant and adds a lot of
      noise to the view. Is it really true that I can’t replace the dom
      element? Am I missing something? Is there a better way to design my
      view and partial?

      Thanks,
      Jonathan

    2

    JHuizingh wrote:

    snag when I start trying to update individual
  • items with ajax (credential_search_instance),
    • <% end %>

    That solution works, but it seems very inelegant and adds a lot of
    noise to the view. Is it really true that I can’t replace the dom
    element? Am I missing something? Is there a better way to design my

    The best solution would be to move the li tags to a layout:

    render :partial => “items/item”, :collection => @items, :layout => ‘li’

    Where _li.html.erb contains

  • <%= yield %>

    • However this is broken in 2.2.2 (it instead renders a collection
    of the collection). I’ve created a ticket:
    http://rails.lighthouseapp.com/projects/8994-ruby-on-rails/tickets/1688

    So until this works, the other options are:

    1. Replace the collection with a loop, either using the
      layout option, or putting the li tags in the main view,

    2. Create a second level of partial, or

    3. Remove the :update option and use outer-HTML replace RJS calls.

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