Rails - Sep 2005 - Auto completion model ID fields

Hey everyone !

I''ve got this nice autocompleter which searches my suppliers table.  It
returns my supplier''s name (which is a concatenation of multiple 
fields).  Now, how do I get the supplier''s ID in the form, so that on 
submit I can do a simple Supplier.find(id) ?

I googled around with no success.

My current thought is to forget about auto_complete_result and build my 
own partial.  In there, I could make the LI''s ID the
supplier''s, and
finally, I would need some way to know when the selection was made, to 
update a hidden field.

Does that sound like a good plan ?  Or is there something already built-in ?

Thanks !
François

Hi there !

François Beausoleil said the following on 2005-09-20
16:58:
> My current thought is to forget about auto_complete_result and build my 
> own partial.  In there, I could make the LI''s ID the
supplier''s, and
> finally, I would need some way to know when the selection was made, to 
> update a hidden field.
> 
> Does that sound like a good plan ?  Or is there something already 
> built-in ?
Well, I went ahead and implemented it.  I had to upgrade to the 
scriptaculous HEAD because the necessary afterUpdateElement callback did 
not exist prior to that.

Also, since the Rails helper for autocomplete doesn''t know about the 
afterUpdateElement callback, I had to do it manually.  Things look like 
this:

<%= hidden_field :product, :supplier_id %>
<%= text_field :supplier, :name, :size => 40 %>
<div class="auto_complete"
id="supplier_name_auto_complete"/>
<script type="text/javascript">
   new Ajax.Autocompleter(''supplier_name'',
''supplier_name_auto_complete'',
      
''/admin/product_catalog/products/auto_complete_for_supplier_name'',
       {afterUpdateElement: function(element, selectedElement) {
         $(''product_supplier_id'').value           
selectedElement.id.substring(1);}});</script>

I haven''t made myself any helpers yet, but I''ll probably end
up needing
one real soon now...

Bye !
François