Update a Rails 3 partial using AJAX (not a form)

ajax, ruby-on-rails-3

Solution

Well it turns out the answer is a little complicated:

Step 1: Use Javascript's `setInterval` function along with jQuery's `$.get()` function to load a page, say `/users/1/posts/latest`.

setInterval(function(){
  $.get("/users/1/posts/latest.js", function(data){
    $("latest_post").html(data);
  },
  "html")
}, 30000);

Step 2: Create a `latest.js.erb` and put it in your `app/views/posts` folder.

Contents of `latest.js.erb`:

<%= render partial: 'posts/latest', object: @user.posts.last, as: :post %>

Step 3: Create the above partial with whatever you'd like (if you don't need a partial, you can just write the entire contents of the div in the `latest.js.erb` file.)

Step 4: Add a latest method to your `PostsController`, that defines `@user`, etc. for the `latest.js.erb` to use.

Step 5: Add `get '/latest'` to your `routes.rb`

Problem

I found a number of questions and answers regarding updating a partial using Ajax after submitting a form. But my question is ?simpler?, I just want to reload a partial every few seconds and load in the new data. This really can't be hard at all, and I remember doing something similar in Rails 2.3 but I can't find the answer anywhere. Basically, I have a show.html.erb rendering a partial like so: ``` <div id="latest_post"> <%= render :partial=>'info/latest', :object=>@user, :as=>:user %> </div> ``` The partial file located at app/views/info/_latest ``` <% post = user.posts.last %> <h1>Last Post</h1> <p><%= post.content %></p> ``` I just want the latest_post div to be updated every 30 seconds. Please help!

Original source