Develop Reference

How do I send data to my ajax method from my controller?

I want to update a element based on things that are happening in the code server side.
For instance, when I invoke my "Start" function by clicking a button on my page it should change the text inside the element to "Downloading", and then once it's done it should change the text to "Done".
I have this script on my page which invokes a action and updates the text after making a successful request.
<script>
function StartDownload() {
$.ajax({
url: '#Url.Action("Start", "MyPage")', success: function (result) {
$("#badge").removeClass("badge-danger").addClass("badge-info").html("Downloading");
}});
};
</script>
as you can see, right now it's just making a request and on success it changes the class and it changes the text to "Downloading".
The goal is to change it to "Downloading" once it invokes the method, and then once the method finishes I want to change the text to "Done".
And I'm not sure how to do that, I need to some how listen for multiple calls in my ajax method but I have no idea how to do that.
What's the proper way of achieving this?
I was thinking of doing something like this but I'm not sure if that's valid
public ActionResult Start()
{
//Post data back to the ajax to tell it to change to "Downloading"
StartDownload();
//Post data back to the ajax to tell it to change to "Finished"
return View();
}

It is pretty simple in fact.
Except success $.ajax() has a lot of other "events", which you can use.
beforeSend for example may be your choice, because it executes just before ajax call
You can find more events here:
https://api.jquery.com/jquery.ajax/

Controlling an $.ajax function within a js "for" loop?

Here's my issue. I have a js function that performs an $.ajax call to fetch some data from a server. When it gets that data back, I need to pass control back to the browser in order to show an update to a div.
The js function is itself within a for loop, and I need to ensure that the for loop does not advance until the js function has updated the div and allowed the Browser to display that update, at which point the for loop advances and the js function (with its ajax call) is called again, continuing until the for loop test causes the loop to end.
I've tried many different approaches - callbacks, promises etc, but to date I can't seem to get a handle on ensuring that the loop doesn't advance until the js function gets its server data, updates the div, causes the browser to display that update and fully completes.
Here's a simple stripped-down version of the function:
function myFunction (email) {
var request = $.ajax( {
url: 'getit.php',
cache: false,
async: false,
method: "post",
timeout: 1000,
data: "requesttype=getemailname&email="+encodeURIComponent(email)
});
request.done(function(response) {
$("#myDiv").html(response);
});
}
and here's part of the js that calls it:
.....
var emailscount = emails.length;
for(var i=0;i<emailscount;i++) {
myFunction (emails[i]);
}
.....
So, my issues are:
1) myFunction must allow the browser to display the updated div html - I'm not sure how to achieve that?
2) the for loop should only proceed when myFunction has received the data back from the server, updated the div html, AND allowed the browser to display that div.
At the moment, I have set the $.ajax call async flag set to "false" to stop execution until the data comes back, but how do I ensure the browser displays the new div content, and that the for loop does not proceed to call myFunction again until the previous myFunction call fully completes?
Any help you can give me would be very welcome, as right now I can't get this all to work!

Sounds like you need a recursive function, not a for loop with synchronous ajax calls
(function myFunction(i) {
$.ajax({
url: 'getit.php',
method: "post",
timeout: 1000,
data: {
requesttype : 'getemailname',
email : emails[i]
}
}).done(function(response) {
$("#myDiv").html(response);
if (emails[++i]) myFunction(i); // continue when this one is done
});
})(0);

Thanks for everyone's help! I'm making good progress (including taking care of JQuery deprecations!) but have run into a further problem. As I need to hand control back to the browser in order to show the refreshed div as I recurse, I'm calling a setTimeout as follows:
var nextBitOfWork = function () {
return myFunction(email);
};
setTimeout(nextBitOfWork, 0);
where myFunction (which recurses) now returns a promise when it's done doing it's $.ajax call.
If I simply call:
return myFunction(email);
without the setTimeout function construct above, the promise is passed through and all my promises are captured and allow me to get the array output I need and everything works great. But without the setTimeout I don't get the browser refresh. Using it as above I get the div update refresh displaying, but seem to lose the promise and so the script continues and I don't get to fill the array I use to capture values as I recurse.
Any thoughts on how to make sure the setTimeout passes on the promise?
Thanks

Multiple jquery ajax request - ways to handle it

If there is jquery ajax loading and I fire another ajax by quickly clicking the button, it kind of gets stuck. How can I handle multiple requests fired together?
How do I do following?
Discard/abort all previous requests and only process the latest one.
Do not allow new request until previous request completes (variation: can be same ajax request or any new ajax request from the page).

AJAX is Asynchronous. So you can fire them at the same time.
Or in the success callback (or .done() callback), you can call one request after another. So it will be easy to manage your issue (you click the button but get stucked), because you can control.
$.ajax({
url: "http://..."
})
.done(function( data ) {
// Other AJAX call
// or restore disabled elements
// while you were receiving the response.
});
If you want a work-around, just tell me.

you can use ajax "beforeSend" to lock the current request.So that user can send a new request only if the previous one is done. As for the process sequence, you can use a global value to store data and always assign it with the new response value.
function request(callback){
if(!$btn.hasClass('disabled')){
$.ajax({
type:'...',
url:'...',
beforeSend:function(){
$btn.addClass('disabled');//so that user cannot send a new request
},
success:function(data){
window.g_data = data;
callback && callback()//success callback
$btn.removeClass('disabled');
}
})
}
}
function callback(){
//process window.g_data
}

Have a look at this library:
Async is a utility module which provides straight-forward, powerful functions for working with asynchronous JavaScript.
Async

AJAX -- Multiple concurrent requests: Delay AJAX execution until certain calls have completed

I am currently working on a web based time tracking software. I'm developing in grails, but this question is solely related to javascript and asynchronous requests.
The time tracking tool shall enable users to choose a day for the current month, create one or multiple activities for each day and save the entire day. Each activity must be assigned to a project and a contract.
Upon choosing "save", the partial day is saved to the database, the hours are calculated and a table is updated at the bottom of the page, showing an overview of the user's worked hours per month.
Now to my issue: There may be a lot of AJAX request. Patient users might only click the "create activity" button just once and wait until it is created. Others, however, might just keep clicking until something happens.
The main issue here is updating the view, although i also recognized some failed calls because of concurrent database transaction (especially when choosing "save" and "delete" sequentially). Any feedback on that issue -- requests not "waiting" for the same row to be ready again -- will be apreciated as well, yet this is not my question.
I have an updateTemplate(data, day) function, which is invoked onSuccess of respective ajax calls in either of my functions saveRecord(), deleteRecord(), pasteRecords(), makeEditable() (undo save). Here is the example AJAX call in jquery:
$.ajax({
type: "POST",
url: "${g.createLink(controller:"controller", action:"action")}",
data: requestJson,
contentType:"application/json; charset=utf-8",
async: true,
success: function(data, textstatus) {updateTemplate(data["template"], tag); updateTable(data["table"]);},
});
In the controller action, a JSON object is rendered as a response, containing the keys template and table. Each key has a template rendered as a String assigned to it, using g.render.
Now, what happens when I click on create repeatedly in very short intervalls, due to the asynchronous calls, some create (or other) actions are executed concurrently. The issue is that updateTemplate just renders data from the repsonse; the data to render is collected in the create controller action. But the "last" request action only finds the objects created by itself. I think this is because create actions are run concurrently
I figure there is something I'm either overcomplicating or doing something essentially wrong working with a page that refreshs dynamically. The only thing I found that helps are synchronous calls, which works, but the user experience was awful. What options do I have to make this work? Is this really it or am I just looking for the wrong approach? How can I make this all more robust, so that impatient users are not able to break my code?
*********EDIT:********
I know that I could block buttons or keyboard shortcuts, use synchronous calls or similar things to avoid those issues. However, I want to know if it is possible to solve it with multiple AJAX requests being submitted. So the user should be able to keep adding new activities, although they won't appear immediately. There is a spinner for feedback anyway. I just want to somehow make sure that before the "last" AJAX request gets fired, the database is up to date so that the controller action will respond with the up-to-date gsp template with the right objects.

With help of this Stackoverflow answer, I found a way to ensure that the ajax call -- in the javascript function executed lastly -- always responds with an up-to-date model. Basically, I put the javascript functions containing AJAX calls in a waiting queue if a "critical" AJAX request has been initiated before but not completed yet.
For that I define the function doCallAjaxBusyAwareFunction(callable) that checks if the global variable Global.busy is 'true' prior to executing the callable function. If it's true, the function will be executed again until Global.busy is false, to finally execute the function -- collecting the data from the DOM -- and fire the AJAX request.
Definition of the global Variable:
var Global = {
ajaxIsBusy = false//,
//additional Global scope variables
};
Definition of the function doCallAjaxBusyAwareFunction:
function doCallAjaxBusyAwareFunction(callable) {
if(Global.busy == true){
console.log("Global.busy = " + Global.busy + ". Timout set! Try again in 100ms!!");
setTimeout(function(){doCallAjaxBusyAwareFunction(callable);}, 100);
}
else{
console.log("Global.busy = " + Global.busy + ". Call function!!");
callable();
}
}
To flag a function containing ajax as critical, I let it set Global.busy = true at the very start and Global.busy = false on AJAX complete. Example call:
function xyz (){
Global.busy = true;
//collect ajax request parameters from DOM
$.ajax({
//desired ajax settings
complete: function(data, status){ Global.busy = false; }
}
Since Global.busy is set to true at the very beginning, the DOM cannot be manipulated -- e.g. by deletes while the function xyz collects DOM data. But when the function was executed, there is still Global.busy === true until the ajax call completes.
Fire an ajax call from a "busy-aware" function:
doCallAjaxBusyAwareFunction(function(){
//collect DOM data
$.ajax({/*AJAX settings*/});
});
....or fire an ajax call from a "busy-aware" function that is also marked critical itself (basically what I mainly use it for):
doCallAjaxBusyAwareFunction(function(){
Global.busy = true;
//collect DOM data
$.ajax({
//AJAX SETTINGS
complete: function(data, status){ Global.busy = false; }
});
});
Feedback is welcome and other options too, especially if this approach is bad practice. I really hope somebody finds this post and evaluates it, since I don't know if it should be done like that at all. I will leave this question unanswered for now.

Saving data form without button

What is a good way of saving data form without submit button?
I have one idea. Below exemplary source code.
var delay = 1000,
timeId,
ajax,
//fw is some framework
form = fw.get('myform');
form.getFields().on('change', changeEventHandler);
function changeEventHandler() {
clearTimeout(timeId);
timeId = setTimeout(this.ajaxRequest, delay);
}
function ajaxRequest() {
//What do with old ajax request? Abort it?
ajax = fw.ajax({
url: 'ololo',
params: {
data: form.getValues()
}
});
}
What do with old ajax request? Abort it?
Have somebody other ideas?

I had a similar problem when designed an interactive form without save button.
First of all, its not a good idea to save the data on every change. I used on blur event, so when the input loses focus, I check if the value was changed (i.e. not just focus-blur on the input), if it was changed, I disabled the input and send an ajax request. When the request returned, I enabled the input once again (possibly displaying an error if the ajax failed and etc, depends on your needs).
Its the easiest way to do interactive form. This avoids the headache of multiple request trying to modify the same value on server side and the headache of monitoring all ajax requests.