In addition to do a full override you may also call parent s view eg. to wrap parent template/view or to change some locals. I will show you how to do that in this post.

Just a simple render :super call in your overwritten template/partial is all you need to activate this feature.

<%= render :super %>

If you would like to change a local variable you have to do the following and it depends on your activescaffold version:

:super with locals for ActiveScaffold 3.0

<%= render :super, :locals => {:headline => 'My _base_form headline'} %>

:super with locals for ActiveScaffold 3.1 and 3.2

<%= render :partial => :super, :locals => {:headline => 'My _base_form headline'} %>

Rails 3.0 waterfall

Rails 3.1 waterfall

Loading tinymce editor

Obtrusive Javascript

def active_scaffold_input_text_editor(column, options)
    options[:class] = "#{options[:class]} mceEditor #{column.options[:class]}".strip
    html = []
    html << send(override_input(:textarea), column, options)
    html << javascript_tag("tinyMCE.execCommand('mceAddControl', false, '#{options[:id]}');") if request.xhr?
    html.join "\n"
end

We use an activescaffold input override to add javascript code to our textareas.

Unobtrusive Javascript

$('form.as_form').live('as:form_loaded', function(event) {
  var as_form = $(this).closest("form");
  as_form.find('textarea.as_mceEditor').each(function(index, elem) {
    tinyMCE.execCommand('mceAddControl', false, $(elem).attr('id'));
  });
  return true;
});

A listener to activescaffold form_load event, finding all textareas and adding tinyMCE control.

Submitting tinymce editor

Obtrusive Javascript

def onsubmit
    if ActiveScaffold.js_framework == :jquery
       submit_js = 'tinyMCE.triggerSave();$(\'textarea.mceEditor\').each(function(index, elem) { tinyMCE.execCommand(\'mceRemoveControl\', false, $(elem).attr(\'id\')); });' if using_tiny_mce?
    else
       submit_js = 'tinyMCE.triggerSave();this.select(\'textarea.mceEditor\').each(function(elem) { tinyMCE.execCommand(\'mceRemoveControl\', false, elem.id); });' if using_tiny_mce?
    end
    [super, submit_js].compact.join ';'
end

We use form submit method override to add javascript code, which will call tinyMCE.triggerSave method.

Unobtrusive Javascript

$('form.as_form').live('as:form_submit', function(event) {
  var as_form = $(this).closest("form");
  if (as_form.has('textarea.as_mceEditor').length > 0) {
    tinyMCE.triggerSave();
  }
  return true;
});

A listener to activescaffold form_submit event, finding all textareas using tinyMCE and calling triggerSave.

Removing tinymce editor

Obtrusive Javascript

def active_scaffold_includes(*args)
        if ActiveScaffold.js_framework == :jquery
          tiny_mce_js = javascript_tag(%|
var action_link_close = ActiveScaffold.ActionLink.Abstract.prototype.close;
ActiveScaffold.ActionLink.Abstract.prototype.close = function() {
$(this.adapter).find('textarea.mceEditor').each(function(index, elem) {
tinyMCE.execCommand('mceRemoveControl', false, $(elem).attr('id'));
});
action_link_close.apply(this);
};
|) if using_tiny_mce?
        else
        ....
        end
        super(*args) + (include_tiny_mce_if_needed || '') + (tiny_mce_js || '')
      end

Ok, we add a javascript code snippet to activescaffold includes in case using_tiny_mce? returns true. Javascript code will link into action link.close action management and will remove our tiny_mce_editor. To be honest I do not like that solution at all.

Unobtrusive Version

$('form.as_form').live('as:form_unloaded', function(event) {
  var as_form = $(this).closest("form");
  as_form.find('textarea.as_mceEditor').each(function(index, elem) {
    tinyMCE.execCommand('mceRemoveControl', false, $(elem).attr('id'));
  });
  return true;
});

A listener to activescaffold form_unload event, finding all textareas and removing tinyMCE control.

Summary

Did we achieve our goals?
We ve separated javascript code from ruby code. which improves code quality and maintainability. You do not have to be an activescaffold expert anymore to add javascript functionality to forms, form_columns, list_columns. You just need to know javascript.

Hope that helps.

• application works without javascript
• html code seperated from javascript code
• html id attribute is nt needed anymore for many operations

I ve mentioned at the beginning that going unobtrusive is nt that easy as it seems. The big issues you have are:

• How to cleanly separate javascript code?
• How may application work if javascript is disabled?
• It s easy to manage click events, unobtrusively, but how to manage load events for ajax calls?

In this post I will focus on the last bullet point. It took a while until I was able to manage that issue.
Unobtrusive javascript needs a trigger event to add the javascript functionality. For example when you click a button. However, if you would like to add javascript functionality on load you are in kind of trouble for ajax applications, because load events of browsers do only fire if the whole page is loaded and not if snippets of html code are changed or added during an ajax call.

I ve solved that issue at least for activescaffold as follows.

ActiveScaffold will trigger the following events in case of page load and ajax load:

• as:list_row_loaded
• as:form_loaded
• as:form_element_loaded

ActiveScaffold will trigger the following events in case of page unload and ajax unload:

• as:list_row_unloaded
• as:form_unloaded
• as:form_element_unloaded

A simple use case would be the following: list columns may be configured for inplace editing, which is a pure javascript feature including the need to add it to the specified columns during as:list_row_load event:

$('tr.record').live('as:list_row_loaded', function(event) {
  $(this).closest("tr").find('td > span.in_place_editor_field').each(function(index) {
    ActiveScaffold.create_inplace_editor($(this));
  });
  return true;
});

In my next post I will show you how I ve migrated the tiny_mce bridge to unobtrusive javascript.

Hope you will benefit from this new javascript events, cause it will make the step to unobtrusive javascript a lot easier using activescaffold.

However, it was quite complicated to do it another way with Activescaffold.

I ve added a new feature to my fork which allows you to change column set configuration for a specific action without before_filters.

It s actually really easy, every action has a new method _columns, which you may override in your controller.

Let me give you some easy examples:

def update_columns
  columns = super
  if @record.id == 85
    columns.select {|column| column.name != :last_name}
  else
    columns
  end
end

def field_search_columns
  columns = super
  if sunny_weather
    columns.select {|column| column.name != :rain}
end

Wish you a great weekend.

I assume that you ve got Rails 3.1/3.2 already installed on your computer.

1. rails new as_rails31
2. please add below the line gem ‘jquery_rails’ in your gem file following code:
Official Gems:

gem 'render_component_vho'
gem 'active_scaffold_vho'

Github Gems:

gem 'render_component_vho', :git => 'git://github.com/vhochstein/render_component.git'
gem 'active_scaffold_vho', :git => 'git://github.com/vhochstein/active_scaffold.git'

3. bundle install
4. bundle exec rake db:create
5. rails g active_scaffold Team name:string position:integer
6. bundle exec rake db:migrate
7. Edit file /app/assets/javascripts/application.js

//= require jquery
//= require jquery-ui
//= require jquery_ujs
//= require active_scaffold
//= require_tree .

8. Edit file /app/assets/stylesheets/application.css

 *= require active_scaffold
 *= require_self
 *= require_tree . 

Hope you will enjoy.

We are facing at least two issues:

1. We have to detect touch devices and apply improved css
2. For some of these devices we have to fix hover issue

Activescaffold uses a new before_filter to identify touch devices, currently it just supports apple devices, but it can be easily overwritten:

def check_input_device
  if request.env["HTTP_USER_AGENT"] && request.env["HTTP_USER_AGENT"][/(iPhone|iPod|iPad)/i]
    session[:input_device_type] = 'TOUCH'
    session[:hover_supported] = false
  else
    session[:input_device_type] = 'MOUSE'
    session[:hover_supported] = true
  end if session[:input_device_type].nil?
end

In addition two new helper methods are provided:

def touch_device?
  session[:input_device_type] == 'TOUCH'
end

def hover_via_click?
  session[:hover_supported] == false
end

And finally we added a new html class “as_touch” to activescaffold’s main div element to be able to apply different css stylings in case of a touch device.

At the end we improved activescaffold’s touchability a lot, it s not perfect but far better than before.

Hope that helps, wish you all a great weekend.

We will use my howto application as a starting point: howto installation.

Please activate field_search and human conditions in players controller:

active_scaffold :player do |conf|
  conf.actions.exclude :search
  conf.actions.add :field_search
  conf.field_search.columns = [:date_of_birth]
  conf.field_search.human_conditions = true
end

If you start the application you may try fieldsearch. date_of_birth is using activescaffold’s default date search ui.
Let s assume we have a special requirement and we would like to show a select box showing all existing date_of_birth values.

How to do that? It s really quite simple and it takes as only three steps:

search column override

Responsible for rendering our specific search_ui.

players_helper.rb
def date_of_birth_search_column(record, html_options)
  selected = html_options.delete :value
        
  players = Player.select('distinct date_of_birth').except(:order).order('date_of_birth DESC').all
  select_options = players.collect do |player|
    [ l(player.date_of_birth), player.date_of_birth ]
  end
  options = { :selected => selected,
                  :include_blank => as_(:_select_)}
  select(:record, :date_of_birth, select_options, options, html_options)
end

human condition column override

Responsible for rendering a special human condition.

players_helper.rb
def date_of_birth_human_condition_column(value, options)
  "#{Player.human_attribute_name(:date_of_birth)} = #{I18n.l(controller.class.condition_value_for_datetime(value, :to_date))}"
end

condition_for column override

Responsible for generating our special sql condition.

players_controller.rb
def self.condition_for_date_of_birth_column(column, value, like_pattern)
  ["#{column.search_sql} = ?", column.column.type_cast(value)]
end

My example used an override for one specific column, however you may as well override an existing search_ui type (such as :select or :multiselect) or just create your own search_ui type….

I ve prepared a simple example app including invoice and applog model for those of you who are interesting in trying out.

Setup Example Application

1. Download: one_step_active_scaffold
2. Download: polymorphici_blog.rb and rename it to model_setup.rb
3. Execute following command: ruby one_step_activescaffold.rb polymorphic_app jquery
4. cd polymorphic_app
5. rails s
6. http://localhost:3000/invoices
7. Create new invoice with a log entry
8. http://localhost:3000/app_logs

Let me show you a simple example. You would like to show “new” form in case player has nt got any team assigned and in case a team is assigned you would like to show “show” form

class PlayersController < ApplicationController
  active_scaffold :player do |conf|
    ....
    conf.columns[:team].actions_for_association_links = [:new, :show]
    ....
  end
end

I m using it quite often, however sometimes I was missing the option to show list view. That s why you have the following options these days: :new, :show, :edit and :list.

class PlayersController < ApplicationController
  active_scaffold :player do |conf|
    ....
    conf.columns[:team].actions_for_association_links = [:new, :list]
    ....
  end
end

Try it out. It s a shortcut for the user, all available information and actions for association model is just one click away and it s inline.