README

This example shows how to display a form inside a Bootstrap modal in Rails using JS views.

The key idea behind this solution is that you can create routes that, instead of rendering HTML or redirecting the user to another action, return some JS code that is executed on the client.

Let's see the code of the link that shows the modal:

<%= link_to "New Contact", new_contact_path, remote: true, class: "btn btn-primary" %>

It points to the new_contact_path route, but notice the remote: true. This tells Rails to call this route using AJAX.

The new action inside ContactsController is the following:

class ContactsController < ApplicationController
  ...
  def new
    @contact = Contact.new
  end
  ...
end

The view new.js.erb (notice the JS extension) renders the form and displays the modal:

$('<%= j render "form" %>').modal();

Note: The j helper allows us to embed HTML code inside JS (it escapes the HTML removing new lines, quotes, and other characters that could break the JS).

The _form.html.erb partial contains the modal with the form:

<div id="contact-modal" class="modal fade">
  <div class="modal-dialog">
    <div class="modal-content">
      ...
      <%= form_for @contact, remote: true do |f| %>
      <div class="modal-body">
        ...
      </div>
      <div class="modal-footer">
        ...
      </div>
      <% end %>
    </div>
  </div>
</div>

Notice the remote: true in the form helper method. Again, this instructs Rails to submit this form using AJAX.

The create action inside ContactController is the following:

def create
  @contact = Contact.create(contact_params)
end
``

The view `create.js.erb` (again, this is a JS view), hides the modal and appends the row to the table:

```erb
<% if @contact.errors.blank? %>
  $('#contact-modal').modal('hide');
  $('table tbody').append('<%= j render "contact_row", contact: @contact %>');
<% else %>
  // TODO: show the errors in the UI
<% end %>