Rails - Dec 2004 - Form handling problem.

I have conquered nearly all my challenges in moving from Java to Rails. 
The last major issue I am encountering is related to multiple submit 
buttons in a form. I have read various comments about how can you 
possibly need more than one submit button and am open to realistic 
alternatives.

Here is the situation.

I have table rows with checkboxes to select records where the user can 
take a number of actions upon a selected set of records.  The user also 
needs be able to page through a set of records and select records from 
various pages.

My experience tells me that the buttons for the actions, paging through 
the records and the checkboxes need to be in a single form. Unless I 
resort to some javascript kung-fu that I am hoping to avoid for other 
reasons.

Does anyone have any suggestions or solutions to multiple submit 
buttons in a single form under rails?

I amy simply be inept due to my old webobjects/java habits so please 
excuse me if this is apparent.

--
Lon

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Lon Baker wrote:
> Does anyone have any suggestions or solutions to multiple submit buttons 
> in a single form under rails?
How about using a batch action which dispatches according to submit
button value:


<%= form_tag :action => ''batch'' %>
  ...
  <input type="submit" name="batch_action"
value="Some Action" />
  <input type="submit" name="batch_action"
value="Another One" />
</form>


class FooController
  BATCH_ACTIONS = {
    ''Some Action'' => ''bar'',
    ''Another One'' => ''baz''
  }

  def batch
    if action = BATCH_ACTIONS[@params[''batch_action'']]
      send(action)
      render_action(action)
    end
  end

  def bar
    render_text "bar called from #{action_name}"
  end

  def baz
    render_text "baz called from #{action_name}"
  end
end


Beast,
jeremy
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