Rails - May 2006 - Best way to render stuff inside a div and pass variables?

For example, I want to click a button or a link, then without leaving 
the page, i want the content of a <div> to change accordingly if I click 
the link1 I want the content1 to show up inside the <div>here</div>

I made it possible by using:
<%= render :partial => "icons", :collection => @packages,
:locals => {
:@icon_name => "-add-black-" } %>
( Passing a string to the render partial.... )
But how do you call a "render :partial ..." using a link or a
button...

In the Agile Web Development with Rails book, the shopping cart is made 
using i think a "component"... but I heard that components have a big 
performance drop...

So my question is whats the best way?
1. Using a link that then activates a render :partial?
2. Using a component?
3. Other?

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

try the link_to_remote helper
http://api.rubyonrails.org/classes/ActionView/Helpers/PrototypeHelper.html#M000412

Lets you call an action via ajax and target a page element to display 
the results in.

Create an action that just returns the partial and call that. You''ll 
also need to tell your controller not to render a layout for that 
action, by adding and exception to your controller:

layout "layouts/thelayoutyourusing",
:except => [:that_thing_your_calling_via_ajax]

Hope that helps... :-)

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