I am using the rails3-jquery-autocomplete gem and it works neat when using it for

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Asked: June 12, 20262026-06-12T09:58:15+00:00 2026-06-12T09:58:15+00:00

I am using the rails3-jquery-autocomplete gem and it works neat when using it for

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I am using the rails3-jquery-autocomplete gem and it works neat when using it for fields that exist in the model. However, I have been trying to use it for associations and I fail to see how to make it work. So let’s explain what I have:

Models:

class Receipt < ActiveRecord::Base
  belongs_to :user
end

class User < ActiveRecord::Base
  has_many :receipts
end

Controller

class Admin::ReceiptsController < AdminController
 autocomplete :user, :name
  def index
    @receipts = Receipt.all
  end
  def show
    @receipt = Receipt.find_by_id(params[:id])
  end
  def edit
    @receipt = Receipt.find_by_id(params[:id])
    @users = User.all
  end
end

View (form):

<%= form_for(@receipt, :url => admin_receipt_path, :html => { :multipart => true }) do |f| %>
 <div class="clearfix">
  <%= f.label :value, "Value($)" %>
  <div class="input"><%= f.text_field :value %></div>
 </div>
 <div class="clearfix">
  <%= f.label :user_id, "User" %>
  <div class="input">
   <%= f.autocomplete_field :user_id, autocomplete_user_name_admin_receipts_path %>
  </div>
 </div>
.....

The thing is… I am able to fetch user names, but I want to actually store the user id in there. The same way I would like to show the name when the admin tries to edit an existing receipt with a user associated. Something that I am able to do with this drop down:

<div class="clearfix">
 <%= f.label :user_id, "User" %>
 <div class="input"><%= f.select :user_id, @users.collect {|p| [ p.name, p.id ] },{:prompt => 'Select a User'} %></div>
</div>

I am failing to see how would I do this with this gem….