Question

I have implemented a simple search on my website, the idea is “choose what field you want to search on, then input your search query.” However, at least one of the search options should be limited to a dropdown menu instead of having the freedom of a text field.

I have been reading and testing some options, saw a couple posts about :on_change and some in-depth javascript solutions, but I just haven’t been able to see what to do.

My current view has a select_tag followed by a text_field_tag, but I want to check what value the select_tag is on and use that to decide whether the next field is a text_field_tag or a select_tag. I am using Haml, this is in my view:

#simple-search-options
  =form_tag packages_path, :method=>'get' do
    Search by:
    = select_tag :search_option, options_for_select(@search_options, @option)
    = text_field_tag :search_string, @s_string
    = submit_tag 'Search'

Note that I am setting default values for the select_tag and the text_field_tag with whatever values were entered in the previous search, thats where the variables @option and @s_string are coming from. This possibly complicates the solution because it means that when the page is first generated, I would like to have already made the choice of what to display based on the value of @option.

I was hoping to stick a div between the first select_tag and the submit_tag that would get populated by some controller and some view, but I didn’t know how to follow through.

Answer 1

You should add both select_tag and text_field_tag in your template, then hide and show them using JavaScript. It’s better to set different names for this two fields because their types are different.