Dependencies
- Rails 1.2+ (not yet tested in rails 2.0).
- Prototype 1.6.
Installation
script/plugin install http://svn.simpltry.com/plugins/active_jax
Short Tutorial:
ActiveJax is a RoR plugin. It’s goal is to be an effective ActiveRecord -> Prototypejs bridge, allowing you to directly call your finders from javascript. Alright let’s see some code:
Ruby Model:
class Author < ActiveRecord::Base
active_jax
def find_by_name(n)
find(:all, :conditions => {:name => n})
end
end
Java Script:
ActiveJax.Author.find_by_name("Nicholas Schlueter").
each(function(author) {
alert(author.name);
});
As you can see you just call the finder by name in the javascript.
It can also do belongs_to associations:
Ruby Model:
class Author < ActiveRecord::Base
active_jax :include => :publisher
belongs_to :publisher
def find_by_name(n)
find(:all, :conditions => {:name => n})
end
end
Java Script:
ActiveJax.Author.find_by_name("Nicholas Schlueter").
each(function(author) {
alert(author.publisher.name);
});
Hold on, isn’t that pretty dangerous. It’s true, exposing your model can be dangerous. There is some security built in. Building on our previous example:
Ruby Model:
class Author < ActiveRecord::Base
active_jax :include => :publisher, :excluded_columns => :email
belongs_to :publisher
def find_by_name(n)
find(:all, :conditions => {:name => n})
end
end
Java Script:
ActiveJax.Author.find_by_name("Nicholas Schlueter").
each(function(author) {
alert(author.publisher.name);
});
Hurray! The email address is no longer published to all would be spammers (bastards).
In order for all this to work you have to do 1 more thing, include the following somewhere in your html doc:
<%= active_jax_include %>
There is also a way to enable controller actions, but to be honest it is only partially thought through.