#258 Token Fields

Mar 21, 2011 | 11 minutes | Ajax, Plugins, Forms

With the jQuery Tokeninput plugin it is easy to add an autocompleting list of entries for a many-to-many association.

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jQuery Tokeninput

          bash
        
bundle
rails g jquery:install

          Gemfile
        
gem "jquery-rails"

          models/book.rb
        
class Book < ActiveRecord::Base
  attr_accessible :name, :author_tokens
  has_many :authorships
  has_many :authors, :through => :authorships
  attr_reader :author_tokens
  
  def author_tokens=(ids)
    self.author_ids = ids.split(",")
  end
end

          authors_controller.rb
        
def index
  @authors = Author.where("name like ?", "%#{params[:q]}%")
  respond_to do |format|
    format.html
    format.json { render :json => @authors.map(&:attributes) }
  end
end

          layouts/application.html.erb
        
<%= stylesheet_link_tag "application", "token-input-facebook" %>
<%= javascript_include_tag :defaults, "jquery.tokeninput" %>

          books/_form.html.erb
        
<p>
  <%= f.label :author_tokens, "Authors" %><br />
  <%= f.text_field :author_tokens, "data-pre" => @book.authors.map(&:attributes).to_json %>
</p>

          application.js
        
$(function() {
  $("#book_author_tokens").tokenInput("/authors.json", {
    crossDomain: false,
    prePopulate: $("#book_author_tokens").data("pre"),
    theme: "facebook"
  });
});