Sub-List Form Plugin

• A plugin that makes it easy to have dynamic lists of related models on a single editing page by presenting the user with a single page to edit/create the parent model as well a list of it’s children. (Uses AJAX)

homepage: http://rorsublist.rubyforge.org/
bq. video: http://rorsublist.rubyforge.org/sublist.html

Usage:

Place the sub_list directory in the vendor/plugins dir of your application.

In the controller which you wish to have a sub list displayed, add the following lines:

include UIEnhancements::SubList helper :SubList sub_list ‘SubModel’, ‘parent’ do |new_research_student| #Place any construction (ie. defaults) required here end

Replace ‘SubModel’ with the class name of the sub model you wish to make available.

Replace ‘parent’ with the parent object.

For instance, if you wish to have a Person controller that has a sub list of Dogs for each person, the sub model would be ‘Dog’ and the parent would be ‘person’. It is expected that @person would exist and that it contains a has_many relationship named ‘dogs’.

The create and edit methods of the controller must be modified as below:

def create person = Person.new(params[:person]) success = true success &&= initialize_dogs success &&= @person.save if success flash[:notice] = ‘Person was successfully created.’ redirect_to :action => ‘list’ else prepare_dogs render_action ‘new’ end end

Make similar changes to edit. These changes call metaprogramming methods added by the sub_list call above. The methods create or update any sub list items and validate them. In case of failure, the prepare_xxxx method ensures that the validation failures are properly displayed and sets up for redisplay of the page.

In the _form.rhtml to display the sub list (add, remove, etc):

 <fieldset>
	<legend>
		Investigators
	</legend>

	<% unless controller.action_name == 'show' %>
		<%= sub_list_add_link 'Dog', 'Add Dog' %>
	<% end %>

	<%= sub_list_content 'Dog', 'person' %>
 </fieldset>

And to define the sub form used for editing the sub list items, create a partial for the sub model and place it in the view directory of the parent.
For instance, _dog.rhtml:

	<% @dog = dog %>
	<div id="<%= "dog_#{dog.id}" %>">
		<fieldset>			
			<label class="first" for="dog[]_firstname">
				First Name
				<%= text_field 'dog[]', 'firstname' %>
			</label>
			
			<label for="dog[]_firstname">
				Last Name
				<%= text_field 'dog[]', 'lastname' %>
			</label>
			
			<% unless controller.action_name == 'show' %>
   		 		<%= sub_list_remove_link dog, 'Dog' %>
  			<% end %>			
		</fieldset>
	</div>

—-

A quick patch to make it work with polimorphic associations:

Lines 44-46 in sub_list_system.rb change to:

obj = model_list.build( values )

Iktorn