Question

I currently have a comment section that posts only after the whole page refreshes. Although after the post the page refreshes by itself it feels inefficient for the whole page to refresh. I was wondering if anyone can help me with a js file that would refresh just that partial, I am still shakey with my js. Any help is much appreciated! Thank you!

This is my current js for the create.js:

$("#comments").html("<%= escape_javascript(render(:partial => @micropost.comments)) %>");

comment controller

class CommentsController < ApplicationController 
  def create
    @micropost = Micropost.find(params[:micropost_id])
    @comment = @micropost.comments.build(params[:comment])
    @comment.user_id = current_user.id
    @comment.save 
      respond_to do |format|
      format.html 
      format.js
    end
  end
end

Comment Section

<div id='CommentContainer-<%= micropost.id%>' class='CommentContainer Condensed2'>
<div class='Comment'>
<%= render :partial => "comments/form", :locals => { :micropost => micropost } %>
</div>
<div id='comments'>
<%=render micropost.comments %>
</div>
</div>

Answer 1

You should use something like this in your controller. This will trigger both the js and html templates as needed.

class CommentsController < ApplicationController 
  respond_to :html
  respond_to :js, only: [ :create ]

  def create
    # ...
    respond_with @comment if @comment.save
  end

  def index
    @comments = Microcomment.find(params[:id]).comments
    respond_with @comments
  end
end

This will then require views/comments/create.js to respond with something like:

// create.js.erb
$("#comments").get("/api/micropost/<%= @micropost.id %>/comments");

And the view for the comments will be index.html.erb

# index.html.erb
<% @comments.each do |comment| %>
  <!-- Display your comment here -->
<% end %>

Now all you have to do is set up a match for /api/micropost/:id/comments in your routes, and this can then serve the list of comments in the desired html format.

Note that this is not completely restful, but I like to keep the /api there to distinguish calls coming from xhr on a url level.