Rails - Dec 2008 - Making a Little Application

Hi everyone.

I am really new to Ruby on Rails, so I apologize if this is a really
simple question but I just can''t think of how I could do this.  I want
there to be a button that will add a drop down menu to the screen, and
then depending on what the user selects it will add either a text
field or a text "area" it will add the selected one to the right of
the menu.  Also, the user would have to be allowed to delete certain
"fields" as well.  Then when the user submits the form Ruby on Rails
will be able to see how many menus were made as well as read what the
user put in all of them.  I hope this makes sense, but if it doesn''t,
just ask for clarification. :)

If anyone could help, it would be great.

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On Thu, Dec 25, 2008 at 5:55 PM, Pierce
<piercefreeman-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w@public.gmane.org> wrote:
>
> Hi everyone.
>
> I am really new to Ruby on Rails, so I apologize if this is a really
> simple question but I just can''t think of how I could do this.  I
want
> there to be a button that will add a drop down menu to the screen, and
> then depending on what the user selects it will add either a text
> field or a text "area" it will add the selected one to the right
of
> the menu.  Also, the user would have to be allowed to delete certain
> "fields" as well.  Then when the user submits the form Ruby on
Rails
> will be able to see how many menus were made as well as read what the
> user put in all of them.  I hope this makes sense, but if it
doesn''t,
> just ask for clarification. :)
>
> If anyone could help, it would be great.
>
Hello Peirce,
I am a newbie myself, so take any ideas I give you with a great big grain of
salt, but I think you have two options here:

1) Instead of a button, use a link.  Then, when the user clicks on the link,
your controller could gather the information submitted (such as what was
selected) and redirect the browser to a new page which would present the
same information plus either a text field or a text area.  This has the
benefit of simplicity and sticks with what you probably already know
(hopefully), but it will be somewhat clunky and look different than the more
modern way of doing what you describe.

2) The more modern way of doing what you describe is to use JavaScript and
AJAX to dynamically render new portions of your page dependent upon what the
user has entered so far.  This has the benefit of looking very slick when
done well, but requires that you learn something about JavaScript and AJAX.
Fortunately, there are a lot of resources (in the form of web pages with
tutorials as well as a plethora of books at your local technical bookstore).

Hopefully, these couple of ideas will get you thinking in one direction or
another.

--wpd

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Pierce wrote:
> Hi everyone.
> 
> I am really new to Ruby on Rails, so I apologize if this is a really
> simple question but I just can''t think of how I could do this.  I
want
> there to be a button that will add a drop down menu to the screen, and
> then depending on what the user selects it will add either a text
> field or a text "area" it will add the selected one to the right
of
> the menu.  Also, the user would have to be allowed to delete certain
> "fields" as well.  Then when the user submits the form Ruby on
Rails
> will be able to see how many menus were made as well as read what the
> user put in all of them.  I hope this makes sense, but if it
doesn''t,
> just ask for clarification. :)
> 
> If anyone could help, it would be great.
Hi Pierce,

Your example is explained in a difficult way.  Could you point at an 
example on a existing website?

Actually, what you describe here is pretty much a lot of UI stuff, this 
can be done with AJAX and showing / hiding html elements.

Thanks,
Michael
-- 
Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/.

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Ruby on Rails in not a magic wand even you can do a magical stuff with
it.
I have read your description a couple of times and with a "I am
missing something" filing.
Perhaps you should first do a simple paper prototyping and then when
all actions are known and clear move to implementation.

Since this look like a simple web application, more like a students
homework, perhaps the Ruby on Rails is not a right tool for it.
Take look at Sinatra http://sinatra.rubyforge.org/ perhaps it''s
sufficient framework for your task.

On Dec 26, 8:56 pm, Michael Hendrickx <rails-mailing-l...@andreas-
s.net> wrote:
> Pierce wrote:
> > Hi everyone.
>
> > I am really new to Ruby on Rails, so I apologize if this is a really
> > simple question but I just can''t think of how I could do
this.  I want
> > there to be a button that will add a drop down menu to the screen, and
> > then depending on what the user selects it will add either a text
> > field or a text "area" it will add the selected one to the
right of
> > the menu.  Also, the user would have to be allowed to delete certain
> > "fields" as well.  Then when the user submits the form Ruby
on Rails
> > will be able to see how many menus were made as well as read what the
> > user put in all of them.  I hope this makes sense, but if it
doesn''t,
> > just ask for clarification. :)
>
> > If anyone could help, it would be great.
>
> Hi Pierce,
>
> Your example is explained in a difficult way.  Could you point at an
> example on a existing website?
>
> Actually, what you describe here is pretty much a lot of UI stuff, this
> can be done with AJAX and showing / hiding html elements.
>
> Thanks,
> Michael
> --
> Posted viahttp://www.ruby-forum.com/.
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@Patrick Doyle

I don''t know about the first suggestion, but I know that the second
option can work but brings up some problems... For example, when the
page is refreshed the user looses all of the new fields.  Also, it
gets hard to manage in Javascript (at least the way that is below)
because it gets a lot of code.

@Michael Hendrickx

Yeah, I kind of assumed it was hard to hard to understand.  :)  I have
wrote a quick example using Javascript, which is below this text.  I
know how to do this in Javascript, but there are some problems so I am
looking if there is a way to do this in Ruby on Rails.  The problems
with doing it in Javascript are outlined above.

@Dejan Dimic

As I said, I kind of guessed that it would be hard to understand.  I
hope the code below makes more sense, but if not just say so and I
will try to explain it better.  Pretty much, a button/link creates a
new object and shows it on the page.  Preferably it would not loose
the new fields (and their values) on a refresh.  I am doing a rewrite
of a web application in Ruby on Rails, and am wondering how to avoid
doing this in Javascript again.


I suppose there really isn''t a reason why I need to do this in Ruby on
Rails, but Javascript brings up some problems and I think it may be
easier in Ruby on Rails in general.  If anyone could give me some
advice about this, it would be great.
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Code:

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN"
"http://
www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;
charset=UTF-8" />
<title>Script Example</title>
<script type="text/javascript">
var number = 1;

function add()
{
	var table = document.getElementById(''table'');

	var textfield = document.createElement(''INPUT'');
	var a = document.createElement(''A'');
	var li = document.createElement(''LI'');


	textfield.setAttribute("Type", "text");
	textfield.setAttribute("Name", "TextField_"+number);
	textfield.setAttribute("Id", "TextField_"+number);

	a.onclick = function()
	{
		remove (li);
		remove(textfield);
		remove(a);
	}

	a.innerHTML = "Remove";

	table.appendChild(li);
	li.appendChild(textfield);
	li.appendChild(a);

	number++;
}

function remove(removeItem)
{
	removeItem.parentNode.removeChild(removeItem);
}


</script>
</head>

<body>
<a href="javascript:add()">Add</a>

	<table id="table">
	</table>
</body>
</html>


On Dec 26, 6:29 pm, Pierce
<piercefree...-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w@public.gmane.org>
wrote:
> @Patrick Doyle
>
> I don''t know about the first suggestion, but I know that the
second
> option can work but brings up some problems... For example, when the
> page is refreshed the user looses all of the new fields.  Also, it
> gets hard to manage in Javascript (at least the way that is below)
> because it gets a lot of code.
>
> @Michael Hendrickx
>
> Yeah, I kind of assumed it was hard to hard to understand.  :)  I have
> wrote a quick example using Javascript, which is below this text.  I
> know how to do this in Javascript, but there are some problems so I am
> looking if there is a way to do this in Ruby on Rails.  The problems
> with doing it in Javascript are outlined above.
>
> @Dejan Dimic
>
> As I said, I kind of guessed that it would be hard to understand.  I
> hope the code below makes more sense, but if not just say so and I
> will try to explain it better.  Pretty much, a button/link creates a
> new object and shows it on the page.  Preferably it would not loose
> the new fields (and their values) on a refresh.  I am doing a rewrite
> of a web application in Ruby on Rails, and am wondering how to avoid
> doing this in Javascript again.
>
> I suppose there really isn''t a reason why I need to do this in
Ruby on
> Rails, but Javascript brings up some problems and I think it may be
> easier in Ruby on Rails in general.  If anyone could give me some
> advice about this, it would be great.
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Sorry for the bump, but I am about to begin the rewrite and am
wondering if there is some way to do this in Rails.
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