Rails - Jul 2005 - 0.13 ajax sortable lists and acts_as_list

I''m trying to figure out a good way to get acts_as_list and the new
sortable lists to play nicely together, but they don''t seem like
they''re designed to mesh well.  The ajax sortable lists post a
complete ordered list of ids back to the server after every change,
but acts_as_list is designed to deal with diff-like changes, rather
than reordering the whole list from scratch.

My quick and dirty solution is to

    @thing_ids = params[:things]
    @thing_ids.each do |thing_id|
      Thing.find(thing_id).move_to_bottom
    end

But that''s rather inefficient, and quite slow when you''re
ordering large lists.

Any better ideas?

Tyler

On 7/7/05, Tyler Kiley
<tyler.kiley-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w@public.gmane.org>
wrote:
> My quick and dirty solution is to
> 
>     @thing_ids = params[:things]
>     @thing_ids.each do |thing_id|
>       Thing.find(thing_id).move_to_bottom
>     end
> 
> But that''s rather inefficient, and quite slow when you''re
ordering large lists.
class Thing < ActiveRecord::Base
  def self.reorder( things )
    things.each do |thing_id|
      thing = find thing_id
      thing.send "#{position_column}=".to_sym, things.index( thing_id
)
      thing.save
    end
  end
end

I haven''t tested the above code -- it''s just off the top of my
head. YMMV

It''s probably no more efficient than what you are doing now, but at
least it keeps the logic in the model class where it belongs (and is
generic enough that you could put the ''reorder'' method in a
module and
include it in classes that need it).

-- 
Regards,
John Wilger

-----------
Alice came to a fork in the road. "Which road do I take?" she asked.
"Where do you want to go?" responded the Cheshire cat.
"I don''t know," Alice answered.
"Then," said the cat, "it doesn''t matter."
- Lewis Carrol, Alice in Wonderland

On Jul 7, 2005, at 11:37 AM, Tyler Kiley wrote:
> I''m trying to figure out a good way to get acts_as_list and the
new
> sortable lists to play nicely together, but they don''t seem like
> they''re designed to mesh well.  The ajax sortable lists post a
> complete ordered list of ids back to the server after every change,
> but acts_as_list is designed to deal with diff-like changes, rather
> than reordering the whole list from scratch.
This seems like a great topic for a tutorial or best-practices  
document, is there such a tutorial or document? I would greatly  
appreciate it!

Best,
Raymond