How to create a sortable interface with 'acts as nested set' in RubyOnRails

Question

I've been implementing some nice interactive interfaces that can sort lists in my m rails app for models that use acts_as_list. I have a sort function that gets called and sets the position for each record afterr each drag and drop using the sortable_element script.aculo.us function.

This is an example of the controller action that handles the sort after the drag and drop completes:

  def sort
    params[:documents].each_with_index do |id, index|
      Document.update_all(['position=?', index+1], ['id=?', id])
    end
  end

Now I am trying to do this same thing with a model that is a nested set (acts_as_nested_set). An example of the type of interface interaction: http://script.aculo.us/playground/test/functional/sortable_tree_test.html

I am stuck on how to write the controller action to handle the sort when the drag and drop completes.

I've added the :tree=>true parameter to the sortable _element function so far which appears to send a list of hashes but it seems that I am still missing information about the entire nested order....

I was certain this has been done before and didn't want to try to reinvent the wheel, but I can't seem to find any examples of the controller action <-> view with js function setup to handle a sortable acts_as_nested_set

Any help with creating an interactive sortable nested set in rubyonrails would be appreciated!

Thanks,

John

Answer 1

a good solution with ONE sql-query from http://henrik.nyh.se/2008/11/rails-jquery-sortables

# in your model:

def self.order(ids)
  update_all(
    ['ordinal = FIND_IN_SET(id, ?)', ids.join(',')],
    { :id => ids }
  )
end

Answer 2

see example app here - http://github.com/matenia/jQuery-Awesome-Nested-Set-Drag-and-Drop

It's a hacky way of doing it, but its basically, sort first, then save order. Uses nestedsortables, serializelist, and 2 actions to traverse the tree

PS: I know this question is over a year old but hoping that the link above helps someone else coming here.

edit: added Rails3 example with some slightly cleaner code.