Jsvars

This rails plugin will hide the messiness of passing variables from rails into javascript. It will automatically add the js needed to create a variable you define in rails, or add variables to objects.

Install

Requires Json (require ‘json’)

./script/plugin install git://github.com/ejschmitt/jsvars.git

Examples

in your controller:

jsvars[:loginPath] = login_path

• Will create a global variable in the JS window object named ‘loginPath’ with the value you assigned.

jsvars[:myObject] = {:title => "My Page", :email => "me@example.com"}

• Adds the object variables that can be used as myObject.title & myObject.email in the view javascipt.
• This will add the object “myObject” if it does not exist, if it already does, only the variables will be added to the already existing object.

jsvars['myObj.myMeth.myValue'] = "myVar"

• Adds the objects myObj, myMeth, myValue if they do not exist and defines the value of myObj.myMeth.myValue to myVar.
• Only undefined objects will be added, so if myObj exists but myMeth and myVal do not, they will be added to the myObj object.

Example of extending an object:
In controller:

jsvars[:login] = {:path => '/login'}

in view:

<script>
    var login = {
        loginFuntion: function () {
            // ....
        },
        specialVar: "My special Var"    
    };
</script>

in JS:

login.loginFunction = function()
    login.specialVar = 'My special Var'
    login.path = '/login'

Getting the rails environment in javascript for all pages
In ApplicationController:

before_filter :set_js_env

def set_js_env
jsvars[:railsEnv] = RAILS_ENV
end

In JS

railsEnv = "development"

What this solves

This solves the mess of stuff like this:

<script>
    var loginPath = '<%= login_path %>';
</script>

(requiring the js to be left in an .html.erb file, or a .js.erb file)

to simple adding:

jsvars[:loginPath] = login_path

to the controller and allowing all js to be kept in .js files out of the html.
This can get especially messy with objects with a few rails defines attributes.

License

Copyright © 2010 Erick Schmitt, released under the MIT license.