class Ajax.Updater
Description
A class that performs an Ajax request and updates a container's contents with the contents of the response.
Ajax.Updater
is a subclass of Ajax.Request
built for a common
use-case.
Example
new Ajax.Updater('items', '/items', {
parameters: { text: $F('text') }
});
This example will make a request to the URL /items
(with the given
parameters); it will then replace the contents of the element with the ID
of items
with whatever response it receives.
Callbacks
Ajax.Updater
supports all the callbacks listed in the Ajax.
Note that the onComplete
callback will be invoked after the element
is updated.
Additional options
Ajax.Updater
has some options of its own apart from the common options
described in the Ajax:
evalScripts
(Boolean; defaults tofalse
): Whether<script>
elements in the response text should be evaluated.insertion
(String
): By default,Element.update
is used, meaning the contents of the response will replace the entire contents of the container. You may instead insert the response text without disrupting existing contents. Theinsertion
option takes one of four strings —top
,bottom
,before
, orafter
— and inserts the contents of the response in the manner described byElement#insert
.
More About evalScripts
If you use evalScripts: true
, any inline <script>
block will be
evaluated. This does not mean it will be evaluated in the global scope;
it won't, and that has important ramifications for your var
and function
statements. Also note that only inline <script>
blocks are supported;
external scripts are ignored. See String#evalScripts
for the details.
Single container, or success/failure split?
The examples above all assume you're going to update the same container whether your request succeeds or fails. Instead, you may want to update only for successful requests, or update a different container on failed requests.
To achieve this, you can pass an object instead of a DOM element for the
container
parameter. This object must have a success
property whose
value identifies the container to be updated on successful requests.
If you also provide it with a failure
property, its value will be used as
the container for failed requests.
In the following code, only successful requests get an update:
new Ajax.Updater({ success: 'items' }, '/items', {
parameters: { text: $F('text') },
insertion: 'bottom'
});
This next example assumes failed requests will deliver an error message as response text — one that should be shown to the user in another area:
new Ajax.Updater({ success: 'items', failure: 'notice' }, '/items',
parameters: { text: $F('text') },
insertion: 'bottom'
});