Rails: In-place editor but no postback? - javascript

I'm using Prototype in my Rails project to do in-place editing (via Ajax.InPlaceEditor) of a form. However, I don't want it to immediately post back and do the update - the form itself is pretty complicated and the user may decide to abandon their changes. Only now they can't, because the form has invisibly (to them) updated the database.
So, what I was thinking of doing was using Prototype InPlaceEditor without specifying a postback url (or make it a generic postback url that returns true) and then as part of the "onLeaveEditMode" for the field, have it update a hidden form field with the new value.
That way, when the user gets the fancy look and feel of an in-place editor but still can press "Cancel" at the bottom and undo all the changes.
So, I've embarked on this mission in a little test prototype and it seems to work -- except it means a substantial amount of javascript code and, in a way, feels like bastardizing the InPlaceEditor purpose. This has to be a solved problem but my google-fu doesn't return anything quite like I want.
Something kind of like this (but obviously not a grid form) where you can in-place edit the fields but must press "save" to commit your changes:
http://www.nitobi.com/products/grid/editors/
Couple of questions:
1) Is there an existing rails plugin or Prototype class to do this for me?
2) If not, does my approach sound reasonable?
Thanks!!

If you just want fancy feel of inline editing. Fake it.
Keep form fields border none. So it will look like normal text.
On hover highlight background of field.
On focus show border (by adding class or changing inline styles).
On Blur again hide borders.
You don't need ghost hidden fields. And most of the stuff is css.
Use jquery to minimize javascript code. :-)

Related

ViewModel like validation in AngularJs

I'm having some difficulty envisioning a potential solution to a dilemma I'm facing, and I need some creative inspiration.
Essentially, I'm struggling to picture a good way to validate a form that can be thoughts of as having multiple nested forms. The challenge is that these nested forms are only rendered when a line item in the main form is clicked, causing a modal to open, at which time the rendering, model binding, etc. takes place, and the nested form can be validated.
The goal is to know whether or not there are validation errors down inside any of the main form's line items without having to open/render a modal for the item to find out. I'd also like to make sure that there's no duplication of validation logic, and that things are drawing from a single common set of validations rules that can be shared/accessed everywhere needed.
Ideally, I'd like to abstract out the validation logic such that it can be used by any ng-model bound element, but can also be used independent of rendering a form.
If anyone knows of any plug-ins that work well with AngularJs and sound well suited, please let me know.
Clarification
Though I'm open to checking out any plug-ins that might help, that's not really what I'm after. My main objective to is to find a way to validate my nested item data without opening/rendering the item's modal.
I would use something that ensures that the user fills in these forms in a predefined format in the first place.
I use something called inputmask in my angularJs applications.
You can use a regex to define the format you want the inputs to be in.
You can also make sure that all the fields in the modal are in the right format before letting the user close the modal(This validation logic can come from a shared or common component).
Another option would be to make the modals hidden and not removed from the DOM so that the bindings remain even when the modal is no longer visible. You can add a red asterisk or something against the line which opens the modal to indicate errors in that modal's form.

Changing html form index when a new form element is added

I am working on an old legacy application which used document.forms[index] approach to access elements in the form and to submit the form. My task is to add a new top panel with few textboxes and buttons. I am using a form for this. This top panel is to be included in all the pages in the application. Now, all the pages stop working since form[index] needs to be updated in all the pages. I know using the form name is the best approach. I have around 1000 places to change. What is the best approach to avoid this problem? I still want to use form for my top panel since I am using spring forms to get the data. Any valuable advice will be appreciated. Thanks.
If you looked up the definition of "unmaintainable", that would be a good example.
One trick might be to leave one set of forms, hidden, with the legacy stuff in them, then make another set, lower in the HTML, that the user sees. Then use some JavaScript to map the data back into the original forms in order to continue to work with the expectations of the legacy code. This keeps everything in the same index-order.

How to let the user change style elements of a form?

I've to build a web-based tool which lets an user change the CSS style of form elements.
E.g. a form contains of two labels, two text fields and a button. The user should now (somehow) be able to set styles like color:red, border:1px or text-align:right (or in any other way define such stuff). This settings should be check (if valid or not) and saved.
In any circumstance it shouldn't be possible to perform an injection attack or to destroy or change (e.g. by removing a text field) the form.
Right now, I'm just seeking for some ideas of how I could handle this request or if there are some useful libraries (PHP, JS, ...). So if anyone want to share his mind if me, I'm more than glad.
This link may be of help http://wrapbootstrap.com/preview/WB0412697
This page makes use of style switcher and the Bootstrap plugin, which changes the colour of the page according to what you select, referring to the code of this 'style switcher' may be the resolution to your problem.

How do I build a multi-stage web form?

I'm trying to build a webform that has multiple stages. I'm patterning it off of the Stack Overflow / Stack Exchange flagging webform. The problem is, I'm not sure how to trigger the "next stage" action.
To illustrate, if one wants to flag a question on Stack Overflow, you click flag and then a popup prompts you to make a choice. If you choose the second option ("it doesn't belong here, or it is a duplicate") the form automagically takes you to a second screen.
First screen:
Upon click, it auto-redirects to:
The problem is that I don't know what the underlying trigger is. How does clicking that radio button send the end user to the next screen?
I tried checking the source, but I have a feeling I'm only seeing half the picture:
No amount of HTML tutorials I find have any practice example similar to this. I suspect this is JavaScript, but I can't find the linked .js file that would trigger these actions.
So: How does the webform auto-redirect upon click? As a follow-up, if it's using JavaScript, is there an HTML/CSS-only workaround I can use?
It might help to think about this at a lower level than frameworks. There are two ways one could make a multi-stage form.
The first (and generally older) way is to store the state on the server. Each stage of the form is actually a separate form, and the client's progress through the questionnaire is kept on the server (for example, as part of the session data).
The second way (the more modern one) is to use JavaScript, as you suspected. There is actually very little black magic in this case, and no auto-redirects on clicks at all. All you do is have one very long form where you show/hide some of the elements depending on the user's selections (of course, you could have multiple <form> elements which you show/hide).
Well, I'd use some sort of jQuery wizard plugin and adapt it to my needs. I did it very recently and it wasn't that hard. You should try SmartWizard 3.0, it's pretty active, the last release was about 2 months ago and the coders answered my questions pretty fast.
Here it is: https://github.com/mstratman/jQuery-Smart-Wizard
You can trigger the wizard to advance to the next step linking an event to the action of clicking the radio button.
Good luck :)

Gradually opening html form

A little web design dilemma: I have a form with a lot of options, mainly radio buttons but not only.
I want the form to open up gradually, meaning at the beginning only two radio buttons are visible, and after the user picks one, more options appear under the chosen radio button. If the user then switches the pick, the page updates and shows the options under the new pick.
This happens on several levels, say 4 or 5 levels, and at the end there is a submit button that submits only certain inputs according to the branches the user chose. Also some of the branches have identical components even though the initial choice was different.
These are the options I could think of:
Build the complete form in the html body and use jquery to hide and show them according to the choices of the user. This means I have to write sections that repeat themselves twice.
Write nothing in the body, and append new elements when the user makes certain choices. This means the JavaScript is more complicated, because I have to make sure nothing appends twice.
Write an HTML skeleton of the form, and use append to fill it. Then use jquery to show and hide elements. This has none of the disadvantages but seems a bit unaesthetic.
Which one should I pick? Any better ideas?
It really comes down to your knowledge of javascript. The cleanest way would be to append to form using javascript. This way you can avoid having duplicates in your form.
If you are not that familiar with javascript and don't know how to append the form, then I would use javascript to show/hide the different parts of the form.
I think using javascript to append would be the correct way, but I don't see anything really wrong with using javascript to just hide parts of the form.
Probably going to use http://wiki.jqueryui.com/w/page/12137997/Menu
or JStree (http://www.jstree.com/) which I found out about from here http://wiki.jqueryui.com/w/page/12138128/Tree

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