Rails: Multi-submit buttons in one Form

Question

Say I have an Article model, and in the article \'new\' view I have two buttons, \"Publish\" and \"Save Draft\".

My question is how can I know which button is clicke

Answer 1

it can also be done on the form_for helper like this

 <%= f.submit "Publish",name: "publish", class: "tiny button radius success" %>
 <%= f.submit 'Mark as Draft', name: "draft", class: "tiny button radius " %>

and the logic is the same on the controller

   if params[:publish]
      // your code
   elsif params[:draft]
      // your code
   end

Answer 2

We solved using advanced constraints in rails.

The idea is to have the same path (and hence the same named route & action) but with constraints routing to different actions.

resources :plan do
  post :save, constraints: CommitParamRouting.new("Propose"), action: :propose
  post :save, constraints: CommitParamRouting.new("Finalize"), action: :finalize
end

CommitParamRouting is a simple class that has a method matches? which returns true if the commit param matches the given instance attr. value.

This available as a gem commit_param_matching.

Answer 3

You could also set some data attributes on the submit buttons and use JavaScript to change out the form action on click of one of the buttons

Answer 4

I remember coming across this problem once. You cannot keep two buttons and then call some action based on the params[:commit]. the submit button onclick is going to call the url the form refers to. There are certain bad ways to get the desired behavior. Keep a button to call the action the form refers to and to get another button to call a action, I used a link_to and then changed the styles to match a button. Also, alternatively you can use jQuery to change the url the form would call, hence deciding what action is invoked at run-time. Hope this helps.

Answer 5

This was covered in Railscast episode 38. Using the params hash to detect which button was clicked is the correct approach:

View:

<%= submit_tag 'Create' %>
<%= submit_tag 'Create and Add Another', name: 'create_and_add' %>

Controller:

if params[:create_and_add]
  # Redirect to new form, for example.

else
  # Redirect to show the newly created record, for example.
end

Answer 6

usually i using the suggestion given by John Topley (see answer above). another way is using JQuery /JS changing the form action attribute- upon clicking the submit button example:

form_tag({} ,:method => 'post', :id => 'reports_action') do 
   .......
   ....... 
  submit_tag 'submit',  :onclick => "return changeAction();"
end

and then .....

function changeAction(){
   $('#reports_action').attr('action','my_new_action');
}