Question

I’m using the jQuery-UI Sortable Connected Lists. I’m saving the order of the connected lists to a Rails server.

My approach is to grab the list ID, column ID and index position of each list item. I want to then wrap this into an object that can be passed as a parameter back to the Rails Controller to be saved into the database. So ideally i’m looking to format the parameter like this: Parameters: {"Activity"=>[{id:1,column:2,position:1},{id:2,column:2,position:2} ,...]}

How do I properly format my parameters to be passed in this Ajax POST request?
Right now, with the approach below, I’m passing on Parameters: {"undefined"=>""}

This is my current jQuery code (Coffeescript) which doesn’t work:

jQuery ->
  $('[id*="day"]').sortable(
    connectWith: ".day"
    placeholder: "ui-state-highlight"
    update: (event, ui) ->
      neworder = new Array()
      $('[id*="day"] > li').each ->
        column = $(this).attr("id")
        index = ui.item.index() + 1
        id = $("#" + column + " li:nth-child(" + index + ") ").attr('id')
        passObject={}
        passObject.id = id
        passObject.column = column
        passObject.index = index
        neworder.push(passObject)
      alert neworder
      $.ajax
        url: "sort"
        type: "POST"
        data: neworder
    ).disableSelection()

My apologies because this seems like a really amateur question but I’m just getting started with programming jQuery and Javascript.

Answer 1

Assuming that all your selectors are correct, then you should be able to do this:

$.ajax
  url: "sort"
  type: "POST"
  data: { Activity: JSON.stringify(neworder) }

---

You can also simplify the rest of your code:

update: (event, ui) ->
  neworder = [ ]
  $('[id*="day"] > li').each ->
    # 'this' should be the DOM element so just read off the 'id' attribute,
    # you don't need to waste time building a jQuery object just to get an
    # 'id' attribute.
    column = @id
    index  = ui.item.index() + 1

    # String interpolation to skip the string addition noise. You already
    # have a jQuery object here so there's nothing wrong with using
    # attr('id') here.
    id = $("##{column} li:nth-child(#{index})").attr('id')

    # You don't need 'passObject' here, just use an object literal and push
    # it onto neworder all in one go.
    neworder.push(
      id:     id
      column: column
      index:  index
    )
  $.ajax
    url: "sort"
    type: "POST"
    data: { Activity: JSON.stringify(neworder) }

Or even more compact (if you like that sort of thing):

update: (event, ui) ->
  neworder = [ ]
  $('[id*="day"] > li').each ->
    index = ui.item.index() + 1
    neworder.push(
      id:     $("##{column} li:nth-child(#{index})").attr('id')
      column: @id
      index:  index
    )
  $.ajax
    url: "sort"
    type: "POST"
    data: { Activity: JSON.stringify(neworder) }

Then you can JSON.parse(params[:Activity]) to unpack it in your controller.

---

After a bit of discussion in the comments, I think your index values are wrong. Doing this:

index = ui.item.index() + 1

will give you the same index for each <li>. You probably want something more like this:

$lis = $('[id*="day"] > li')
$lis.each ->
  index = $lis.index(@)
  #...

That should give you the index of the current <li> (@) within the collection of <li>s that you’re iterating over. Alternatively, you could use the arguments that each passes to the iterator function:

$('[id*="day"] > li').each (index, el) ->
  # Just use `index` as-is in here...