Provides a form helper method that displays a sortable list of associated records from a has_many association and an autocomplete field that can be used to add records to the list.
Has Many Autocomplete has only been tested on Rails 3.1.
Include the gem on your Gemfile
gem 'has-many-autocomplete', :git => 'git://github.com/tombenner/has-many-autocomplete'
Install it
bundle install
Run the generator
rails g has_many_autocomplete:install
jQuery UI needs to be included, either through Google's CDN:
stylesheet_link_tag "http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jqueryui/1.8.8/themes/ui-lightness/jquery-ui.css"
javascript_include_tag "https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jqueryui/1.8.16/jquery-ui.min.js"
Or by installing the files and including them:
rails g has_many_autocomplete:install_ui
stylesheet_link_tag "ui-lightness/jquery-ui"
javascript_include_tag "jquery-ui.min"
Finally, include has-many-autocomplete.js in your layout after jQuery and jQuery UI:
javascript_include_tag "jquery", "jquery-ui", "has-many-autocomplete"
We'll assume you have a Playlist model that has_many Songs through PlaylistsSong, and that you want to add Songs to a Playlist via the autocomplete:
class Playlist < ActiveRecord::Base
has_many :playlists_songs, :dependent => :destroy
has_many :songs, :through => :playlists_songs, :order => "playlists_songs.id"
end
class PlaylistsSong < ActiveRecord::Base
belongs_to :playlist
belongs_to :song
end
# Song has a name:string column, which will be used in the autocomplete lookups
class Song < ActiveRecord::Base
end
To set up the action that the autocomplete uses in your controller, call autocomplete with the model name and the method:
class PlaylistsController < ApplicationController
autocomplete :song, :name
end
This will create an autocomplete_song_name action in your controller, which you'll need to add into routes.rb:
resources :playlists do
get :autocomplete_song_name, :on => :collection
end
Note: To preserve the order of the songs, you'll need to set @playlist.songs = [] in the PlaylistsController#update action:
def update
@playlist = Playlist.find(params[:id])
@playlist.songs = []
respond_to do |format|
# etc...
end
end
By default, the search starts from the beginning of the string you're searching for. If you want to do a full search, set the full parameter to true.
class ProductsController < ApplicationController
autocomplete :song, :name, :full => true
end
The following terms would match the query 'un':
- Luna
- Unacceptable
- Rerun
Only the following terms mould match the query 'un':
- Unacceptable
By default, your search will only return the required columns from the database needed to populate your form, namely id and the column you are searching (name, in the above example).
Passing an array of attributes/column names to this option will fetch and return the specified data.
class SongsController < ApplicationController
autocomplete :song, :name, :extra_data => [:slogan]
end
If you want to display a different version of what you're looking for, you can use the :display_value option.
This options receives a method name as the parameter, and that method will be called on the instance when displaying the results.
class Song < ActiveRecord::Base
def funky_method
"#{self.name}.camelize"
end
end
class PlaylistsController < ApplicationController
autocomplete :song, :name, :display_value => :funky_method
end
In the example above, you will search by name, but the autocomplete list will display the result of funky_method
This wouldn't really make much sense unless you use it with the "id_element" attribute. (See below)
Only the object's id and the column you are searching on will be returned in JSON, so if your display_value method requires another parameter, make sure to fetch it with the :extra_data option
Added option to use scopes. Pass scopes in an array.
e.g :scopes => [:scope1, :scope2]
By default autocomplete uses method name as column name. Now it can be specified using column_name options
:column_name => 'name'
Yajl is used as the default JSON encoder, but you can specify your own:
class PlaylistsController < ApplicationController
autocomplete :song, :name do |items|
CustomJSON::Encoder.encode(items)
end
end
In the form, the following method will display both the autocomplete and the sortable list of songs:
form_for @playlist do |f|
f.has_many_autocomplete :song_ids, autocomplete_song_name_playlists_path, @playlist.songs.collect{|s| [s.name, s.id]}
end
A great deal of this code was based on or taken from the excellent rails3-jquery-autocomplete, so a hearty thanks goes to that project's contributors.