Скачать или смотреть How to Implement a Dropdown Selection for Searching in Rails

Learn how to create a dropdown menu that redirects to a specific book's details in a Rails application with this step-by-step guide.
---
This video is based on the question https://stackoverflow.com/q/71961764/ asked by the user 'solidsnake99' ( https://stackoverflow.com/u/14810993/ ) and on the answer https://stackoverflow.com/a/71962137/ provided by the user 'def avi' ( https://stackoverflow.com/u/17780828/ ) at 'Stack Overflow' website. Thanks to these great users and Stackexchange community for their contributions.

Visit these links for original content and any more details, such as alternate solutions, latest updates/developments on topic, comments, revision history etc. For example, the original title of the Question was: Rails how to search dropdown selection

Also, Content (except music) licensed under CC BY-SA https://meta.stackexchange.com/help/l...
The original Question post is licensed under the 'CC BY-SA 4.0' ( https://creativecommons.org/licenses/... ) license, and the original Answer post is licensed under the 'CC BY-SA 4.0' ( https://creativecommons.org/licenses/... ) license.

If anything seems off to you, please feel free to write me at vlogize [AT] gmail [DOT] com.
---
Implementing a Dropdown Selection for Searching in Rails

If you're a Rails beginner and looking to create a seamless way for users to select and view book details from a dropdown menu, you've come to the right place! In this guide, we will break down how to redirect users to the chosen book's information page after they make a selection from a dropdown menu.

The Problem

Imagine having a collection of books in your database and wanting to allow users to access each book's information easily. By appending the book title to your URL, users can navigate directly to a book's details. However, using a dropdown menu for selection can enhance the user experience significantly. So, the challenge here is:

How do you create a dropdown menu that allows users to select a book and then redirects them to the corresponding book information page?

The Solution

We can solve this problem by implementing a form that includes a dropdown for book selection and a submit button. When a user selects a book and submits the form, the application will fetch the book's data and redirect to the appropriate page.

Step 1: Create the Dropdown

First, we create the dropdown using the select_tag helper in Rails. This tag will populate the dropdown with book titles but keep the unique identifiers (IDs) necessary for retrieval.

[[See Video to Reveal this Text or Code Snippet]]

In this line:

options_from_collection_for_select generates options for the dropdown from your @ books collection.

The first argument ('id') specifies that the option's value will be the book's ID, which we will use to find the book later.

The second argument ('title') specifies that the display text in the dropdown will be the book's title.

Step 2: Creating the Form

Next, we will wrap our dropdown in a form. This can also include a submission button that allows the user to choose a book and initiate the search.

[[See Video to Reveal this Text or Code Snippet]]

Step 3: Handling the Submission

When the form is submitted, the selected book's ID is sent to the server. We need to handle this in our controller by performing the following steps:

Retrieve the Book ID: Use the params hash to access the ID of the selected book.

Find the Book: Use the find method to retrieve the book instance.

Redirect: Generate the appropriate URL and redirect the user to the book's details page.

Here is how you could implement this in your controller:

[[See Video to Reveal this Text or Code Snippet]]

Important Notes to Consider

Ensure your book titles are unique to avoid confusion when selecting books from the dropdown.

If you prefer to allow searching by the title instead of ID, you can use find_by to query the book instance based on the title. Just make sure to adjust the dropdown selections accordingly.

Conclusion

Setting up a dropdown selection for users to access different book details in a Rails application is straightforward. By following the steps outlined above, you can create a more interactive and efficient way for users to explore your database of books. Implement these techniques, and improve your Rails application's user experience today!