thanks for taking the time to answer bill, my post was indeed vague i must reckon, i'll try to clear things up.
bill walton wrote: > For starters, what's a 'system component'? And whatever it is, is this > the thing that you want go get loaded when the user takes some action? well it's actually a 3d game engine plugin (s3dplayer from www.stonetrip.com FYI), so it's actually a system-wide component taht relies on a JS to be loaded into the browser on page load. Once loaded it should remain on the page, the user interacts with it, and under certain circumstances, it will fire up JS functions to update elements of the DOM. >> On defined user actions, > > So we're talking about clicking a link or a button? Well no, and that's the tricky part, thanks for pointing this out. The 'triggering' action would actually come from the user interacting with the game engine component, as i explained. The component can access the system to open a URL, so I use this to call JS functions, with _self as the target, so the page doesn't reload. >> this component will call a definable JS method, > > Definable? As in 'not known until run-time'? Well sort of (cf. my previous response), and that's precisely where i get confused. When using link_to_function, rails knows about an actual element that will act as a trigger (form field, some text etc), here the triggers are just function calls to the JS layer of the client. >> that i'd like to act in a link_remote_to fashion, to update some >> elements of the page. > > > link_to_remote(...) makes an XHR / XMLHttpRequest to a controller method > on the server. In Rails you have several options WRT constructing the > JS response the client expects. The easiest is an RJS template that > replaces existing html element(s) on the page. > > I highly recommend Cody Fauser's O'Reilly Shortcut: RJS Templates. Best > $10 I've spent on Rails so far. > > link_to_function(...) calls a JS function you specify in the call. Well, I'd really like to be able to specify some DOM behavior as soon as the triggering user-action takes place (like displaying a spinner without relying on a JS callback), that's what i meant by "link_to_function fashion", i'm thinking i might have overlooked the traditionnal routes way though... hope this makes more sense. cheers -- Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/. --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Ruby on Rails: Talk" group. To post to this group, send email to rubyonrails-talk@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to rubyonrails-talk+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/rubyonrails-talk?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
