No more full page reloads for your Rails app! Yay!
Automatically makes your app loading content in the background via ajax.
Works by turning all internal links into ajax links that trigger an update of the page's content area. Also form submission are automatically turned into ajax requests.
Features:
- Uses the html5 history interface for changing the url and making the browser's back and forward buttons work with ajax.
- Falls back to a hash based approach for browsers without the history interface (like Internet Explorer version <10)
- Hash based and non-hash URLs are interchangeable.
- Transparently handles redirects and supports page titles and flash messages.
- Requires Ruby 1.9 and the asset pipeline.
- Tested with Chrome, Firefox, Safari and Internet Explorer 8+
Demo: http://ajaxify-demo.herokuapp.com/
Inspired by the pjax_rails gem (https://github.com/rails/pjax_rails)
Add this line to your application's Gemfile:
gem 'ajaxify_rails'
And then execute:
$ bundle
In your application.js file add:
//= require ajaxify_rails
Call Ajaxify.init() in your layout's javascript.
Do this as early as possible to ensure Ajaxify's interchangeable url schemes (history api vs. hash based urls)
work most effectively.
The later you call init(), the later potential redirects from one scheme to another are performed,
which means the more unnecessary work the browser has to do.
Ajaxify assumes that your app has a content container html tag with the id main.
This tag is the container wrapping the yield statement in your layout.
If yield doesn't have a wrapper in your app yet, you need to supply one to get ajaxification working:
#main
= yield
You can change the content wrapper in your javascript by setting
Ajaxify.content_container = 'content_container_id'
You probably like to have a loader image to be displayed to the user while content loads via ajax.
This is simple. Ajaxify automatically inserts a loader div with the class ajaxify_loader into
the content wrapper before starting an ajax request. So just supply styles for .ajaxify_loader in your css, with an
animated gif as a background.
If you define a method called page_title in your application controller, Ajaxify will automatically
update the page's title tag after the main content has changed.
It's a common use case to have a navigation that needs to change its appearence and possibly functioning when the user navigates to a different section of the page. Ajaxify provides a success callback that is triggered after successful updates of he page's main content. Just hook into it in your javascript and make your layout changes:
Ajaxify.success ->
# update navigation and/or other layout elements
Ajaxify Rails correctly displays your flash messages after ajaxified requests. To do so it stores them in cookies.
By default, only flash[:notice] is supported. If you are using for example flash[:warning] as well you have to set:
Ajaxify.flash_types = ['notice', 'warning']
Also make sure that you supply invisible wrapper tags in your layout with the flash type as its id, e.g.:
#notice{ style: "#{'display:none' unless flash[:notice]}" }
= flash[:notice]
We all know them. Those big requests changing the layout of the page so significantly that loading ajax into a content area and doing some minor layout tweaks here and there simply doesn't cut it. Sigh.
There might also be links and forms that have already their own ajax functionality.
To turn Ajaxify off for certain links and forms, simply add the class no_ajaxify directly to the link or form:
= link_to 'Change everything!', re_render_it_all_path, class: 'no_ajaxify'
Sometimes you need to redirect on the root url.
For example you might have a localized application with the locale inside the url.
When a user navigates to your_domain.com he/she gets redirected to e.g. your_domain.com/en/. This works fine in browsers supporting
the html 5 history api. However, for browsers without the history api like Internet Explorer before version 10, Ajaxify needs hints
about your url structure to not get confused (it creates endless redirects otherwise!). You need to explicitly supply all possible root
paths.
Example: if your app's root url potentially redirects to your_domain.com/en/ and your_domain.com/de/
you need to hint Ajaxyfiy like this:
Ajaxify.base_paths = ['de', 'en']
Important: Ajaxify.base_paths need to be set before Ajaxify.init() is called!
Sometimes you need to do non trivial modifications of the layout whenever the content in the main content area of your site changes.
Ajaxify allows you to attach arbitrary html to ajaxified requests. This extra html is then stripped from the main content
that is inserted in the content area. But before that a callback is triggered which can be used to grab the extra content and do something with it.
To use this feature you need to provide a method ajaxify_extra_content in your ApplicationController:
def ajaxify_extra_content
... your extra html ...
end
For example you could provide url for a widget in the layout like this:
def ajaxify_extra_content
"<div id='my_fancy_widget_html'> some html </div>"
end
And then, on the client side hook into Ajaxify using the handle_extra_content callback and select the widget html via #ajaxify_content:
Ajaxify.handle_extra_content = ->
$('#my_fancy_widget').html $('#ajaxify_content #my_fancy_widget_html').html()
Here is a reference of all options and callbacks you can set on the client side via Ajaxify.<i>option_or_callback</i> = :
Option/Callback Default Description
active true Toggles link ajaxification.
content_container 'main' Id of the container to insert the main content into ("yield wrapper").
base_paths null Base path segments for applications with root url redirects.
on_before_load null Callback: Called before the ajaxify request is started.
on_success null Callback: Called when an ajaxify requests finished successfully.
on_success_once null Callback: Like on_success but only called once.
handle_extra_content null Callback: Called before extra content is stripped from the ajax request's response.
flash_types ['notice'] Flash types your Rails app uses. E.g. ['notice', 'warning', 'error']
flash_effect null Callback: Called for each flash type after flash is set.
clear_flash_effect null Callback: Called for each flash type whenever flash message is not present
Also check the example app source code for usage: https://github.com/ncri/ajaxify_rails_demo_app
- Fork it
- Create your feature branch (
git checkout -b my-new-feature) - Commit your changes (
git commit -am 'Added some feature') - Push to the branch (
git push origin my-new-feature) - Create new Pull Request