Question

I am new to RoR and I am looking for a way to dynamically display values in some text fields depending on the option chosen from a select menu in a form. The associated records are stored in another table. Hopefully in a way AJAX can be used such that it wouldn’t require a page refresh. I have seen examples in which select menus are dynamically changed according to values of select menus but not text fields.
Thanks,
Alex
PS: I am using rails 3.

Answer 1

Here’s how I did it. I’m a Rails beginner too, so this may not be the best/most efficient way, but it works:

JS:

 $('#select_box_id').live('change', function() {
    var select_field_val = $('#select_box_id').val();
    if(select_field_val == "") select_field_val = "0";
    $.get('/some_controller_action/' + select_field_val, function(data) {
      $('#text_field_div').html(data);
    });
    return false;
  });

Controller:

  def some_controller_action
    #some_processing...
    result = whatever
    render :partial => "my_partial", :locals => { :text_field_value => result }
  end

View:

<div id="text_field_div">
   <%= render :partial => 'my_partial', :locals => { :text_field_value => "" } %>
</div>

Partial:

<%= text_field_tag :text_field, text_field_value %>