Rails - Feb 2006 - Help with ajax and form submission

While working on a new application, a friend and I ran into a problem 
with using ajax.  Users are used to being able to modify the contents of 
a screen until they are finished and then saving (committing).  There 
does not seem to be a way to do this with ajax, since you have to modify 
the model whenever you call back to the server. The half baked solution 
that we came up with is to create a copy of the
child collections and the parent in the session, and modify them.  Once 
the user submits, everything is then taken from the session and 
committed. Is there a better way to allow for this kind of functionality 
and use ajax?

-- 
Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/.

Phil Craven wrote:
> While working on a new application, a friend and I ran into a problem 
> with using ajax.  Users are used to being able to modify the contents of 
> a screen until they are finished and then saving (committing).  There 
> does not seem to be a way to do this with ajax, since you have to modify 
> the model whenever you call back to the server.
So why use AJAX?  If there''s no benefit in the round trip, why bother 
breaking the metaphor?

The flip side of that argument is quite well thought through here:
   http://www.baekdal.com/articles/usability/usable-XMLHttpRequest/

In the end, it all devolves down to how you present the UI, not the 
technology behind it.

-- 
Alex