A Dedication

I didn't think twice to decide that I needed to write something for dear Shilpi. It was her last day yesterday and we had a nice get together in caffiiaa in the night. Just the usual dinner with coffee. The hookka was a bonus item which happened to be available. We smoked the damn thing using our mouth and even the nose after which it started giving out raw coal taste. Swati was still adement and wanted to smoke the thing. She gave up after she coughed her guts out.

It was nice to know what all the people who gathered - Gitesh, Swati, KD, Srinath, Manisha, Vineeth, me n' and Shilpi - thought about Shilpi (exculding Shilpi ofcourse). We went on saying the good and bad qualities that we thought we had. We were in total agreement that she was a decision maked and a situation handler. I thought about those times when she puked inside a car, I said I would come to play with her but did not etc. She talked sensible stuff and was not girly about it through out our friendship. Really nice friend to have.

Dedications are all for you Shilpi. Hope you lead a great life ahead. Ciao

Ajaxified Will Paginate

I added the will_paginate plug-in for my rails 2.3.2 application but quickly found that there was no way I could ajaxify it. So I made a renderer of my own by modifyind some code. It was fun and effective.

The will_paginate.rb file inside config/initializers look like this..

class PaginationListLinkRenderer < WillPaginate::LinkRenderer

  def to_html
    links = @options[:page_links] ? windowed_links : []

    links.unshift(page_link_or_span(@collection.previous_page, 'previous', @options[:previous_label]))
    links.push(page_link_or_span(@collection.next_page, 'next', @options[:next_label]))

    html = links.join(@options[:separator])
    @options[:container] ? @template.content_tag(:ul, html, html_attributes) : html
  end

protected

  def windowed_links
    visible_page_numbers.map { |n| page_link_or_span(n, (n == current_page ? 'current' : nil)) }
  end

  def page_link_or_span(page, span_class, text = nil)
    text ||= page.to_s
    if page && page != current_page
      page_link(page, text, :class => span_class)
    else
      page_span(page, text, :class => span_class)
    end
  end

  def page_link(page, text, attributes = {})
    if @options[:ajax].nil?
      return @template.content_tag(:li, @template.link_to(text, url_for(page)), attributes)
    else
      return @template.content_tag(:li, @template.link_to(text,'#', :onclick => ajax_url_for(page)), attributes) 
    end
  end
  
  def ajax_url_for(page)
    return @options[:fn_name]+'("'+ (page.to_s) +'")'
  end

  def page_span(page, text, attributes = {})
    @template.content_tag(:li, text, attributes)
  end

end

WillPaginate::ViewHelpers.pagination_options[:renderer] = 'PaginationListLinkRenderer'
WillPaginate::ViewHelpers.pagination_options[:previous_label] = 'Prev'
WillPaginate::ViewHelpers.pagination_options[:next_label] = 'Next'

The ajax_url_for page gives the javascript to be called for the link. The options added are

:ajax => true (to signify that it is an Ajax request)
:fn_name => some_function_name (The Javascipt function which has the Ajax call)

The view is a partial which requires these local variables to be passed

A collection of paginated records using will_paginate's Model.paginate(:page => page)
A base_url which has the url to which the page parameter should be added.
The container which should be populated after the Ajax call.

The partial looks like this ...

<script type="text/javascript"><br />var access_page_for_paginate = function(page_no){<br /> <%= remote_function(:update => container, :url => base_url, :with => '"page="+page_no') %><br />}<br /></script>
<div class="pagination_container">
<%= will_paginate collection, :ajax => true, :base => base_url,
:container => container, :fn_name => 'access_page_for_paginate' %>
</div>

And the partial is called like this ..

<%= render :partial => 'partials/ajax_paginate',
:locals => {:collection => @feeds, :base_url => show_service_url, :container => 'profile_all'} %>