jQuery UI sortable - sorting images

Question

I\'ve just implemented the jQuery UI sortable plugin for a set of images. The markup I have is as follows:

Answer 1

I've just done this. Here's how I did it:

Surround the #images element with a form, action pointing to your ajax script. Alongside each image, have a hidden input field eg:

When you re-order the images, capture the jQuery sortable update and stop events, similar to this:

$("#images").sortable({

  // configuration
  delay: 100,
  items: 'li',
  update: function(event, ui) {

    // Update order indexes
    updateOrderIndexes();
  },
  stop: function(event, ui) {

    // fire off the update method
    postUpdateOrder();
  }
});

function updateOrderIndexes()
{
  // Update the order index on each item
  var orderIndex = 1;
  $("#images li").each( function() {

    $(this).find("input[type=hidden]:first").val(orderIndex);
    orderIndex++;
  })    
}

In the postUpdateOrder() function which you'll need to write, you can use jQuery's $.post function to carry out an AJAX post request back to the server. Each field will then be available in your PHP script's $_POST array, named as per the ID, with a value of the new index. Validate as appropriate, save the new values, and send an OK/error back to the browser.

Update based on your edit requirement of not enclosing it in a form, you could still do this by eg adding a class to all your order-related input fields, putting the AJAX url into your Javascript somewhere eg var myRoute = '/some/path/to/script.php' and construct the data to send to the server yourself based on $("input.myclass").each()-style code with jQuery. Essentially all I use the input fields for is data storage client-side - you can accomplish this however you want.

Just to clarify as well, you don't need to have a submit button etc for a form, it just makes it easier to serialize the data to send to your AJAX script - this is fired automatically when you stop dragging an item if you use the above code.