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• The best_in_place gem is the easiest solution for in place editing in Ruby on Rails.
• This gem provides functionality of “in place editing” in ruby on rails without writing any extra ajax code.
• It supports text inputs, textarea, select dropdown, checkboxes, jQuery UI Datepickers, etc.
• Also Displays server-side validation

Installation Steps of “best_in_place” Gem :

Installing best_in_place is very easy and straight-forward. Just begin including the gem in your Gemfile:

gem ‘best_in_place’

After that, specify the use of the jquery and best in place javascripts in your application.js, and optionally specify jquery-ui if you want to use jQuery UI datepickers:

 //= require jquery
//= require best_in_place

//= require jquery-ui
//= require best_in_place.jquery-ui

Then, just add a binding to prepare all best in place fields when the document is ready:

$(document).ready(function() {
  /* Activating Best In Place */
  jQuery(".best_in_place").best_in_place();
});

You are done!

I have created a sample DemoApp in which I have done couple of changes in code as:

1. users/show.html.erb:

<p id=”notice”><%= notice %></p>

<p>

<strong>Name:</strong>

<%= best_in_place @user, :name %>

</p>

<p>

<strong>Email:</strong>

<%= best_in_place @user, :email %>

</p>

<p>

<strong>Address:</strong>

<%= best_in_place @user, :address, :as => :textarea, :ok_button => ‘Save’, :cancel_button => ‘Cancel’ %>

</p>

<p>

<strong>Gender:</strong>

<%= best_in_place @user, :gender, :as => :select, :collection => [[“Male”,”Male”],[“Female”,”Female”]] %>

</p>

<p>

<strong>Subscribe:</strong>

<%= best_in_place @user, :subscribe, as: :checkbox, collection: {false: “No”, true: “Yes”} %>

</p>

2. 2. app/assets/stylesheets/users.scss

.purr{
	position: fixed;
	top: 30px;
	right: 100px;
	width: 250px;
	padding: 20px;
	background-color: #FCC;
	border: solid 2px #C66;
	&:first-letter { text-transform: uppercase; }
}

Following are the snapshots of various scenarios:

1. initial page:

2. Editing in place Name Field:

3. Address TextField as in place textfield with Save and Cancel Button.

4. Gender field as in place Select Dropdown

5. Server side errors using in best_in_place. In example it triggered when email is duplicate.

The details about this gem is given on :

https://github.com/bernat/best_in_place