2

I'm using Rails 3 and I have an ajax form (i.e. :remote => true) that hit's a "insert" action on my controller.

What I want is for the user to stay on the index page but be able to display flash messages set by the "insert" action in the controller.

Currently my "insert" action does something like:

def insert
  begin
    # perform insert of stuff
    flash[:success] = "Successfully..."
  rescue
    flash[:error] = "failed ..."
  end
  render :nothing => true
end

This allows the form (on index.html.erb) to be submitted and keeps the user on that page but no flash messages show up. How can I get the flash messages to appear? (guessing it has to do with the render :nothing stuff, but without that I get "missing template" errors in the server log).

codecraig
  • 3,118
  • 9
  • 48
  • 62

1 Answers1

4

You'll need a javascript responder:

def insert
  begin
    # perform insert of stuff
    flash[:success] = "Successfully..."
  rescue
    flash[:error] = "failed ..."
  end
end


# insert.js.erb
$('#flash').html(<%= flash[:notice].to_json %>);

Using flash to show form error messages is definitely irregular behavior. You'd be better off updating an element within the form with the error message or replacing the form altogether.

mnelson
  • 2,992
  • 1
  • 17
  • 19
  • The flash isn't really meant to show error messages related to the form, but to instead inform the user if a failure occurred during the insert to the database. – codecraig Mar 28 '11 at 12:20