Question

I am using Ruby on Rails v3.2.2 and the jquery-rails v2.0.2 gems (including jQuery UI). In a my view I have implemented a “basic” / “simple” jQuery UI Sortable Interaction and I would like to constrain users to sort only a given element in the list. That is, for example, if I have the following sortable list:

• Item 1
• Item 2
• Item 3
• Item …

I would make only the Item 3 to be sortable and the others to be not. Is it possible?

Answer 1

You can use the handle option. With HTML like:

<ul id="sortable">
  <li>Item 1</li>
  <li>Item 2</li>
  <li><span id="thisone">Item 3</span></li>
  <li>Item 4</li>
</ul>

You can set the sortable properties thus:

$(function() {
    $( "#sortable" ).sortable({handle: '#thisone'});
});