Using sortable() on AJAX-generated results

Hi all,

I have been playing around with the sortable() functionality and I have got it working fine on static DB results, however I have noticed that I can't get it to work on AJAX-generated DB results. I feel it has something to do with how I call the sortable() function within the $(document).ready(function() however I am not 100% sure. I have searched this forum and other forums to see if anyone else has this problem but I haven't found anything similar yet, so here's my attempt to describe my problem:

I have a MySQL database called 'db_objects' which contains 1 table:

CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS `tbl_objects` (
`obj_id` int(11) NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
`obj_name` varchar(50) DEFAULT NULL,
`obj_type` int(11) DEFAULT NULL,
PRIMARY KEY (`obj_id`)
) ENGINE=InnoDB DEFAULT CHARSET=latin1 AUTO_INCREMENT=10 ;
INSERT INTO `tbl_objects` (`obj_id`, `obj_name`, `obj_type`) VALUES
(1, 'Sam', 1),
(2, 'John', 1),
(3, 'Tom', 1),
(4, 'Bob', 1),
(5, 'Fluffy', 2),
(6, 'Paws', 2),
(7, 'Kitty', 2),
(8, 'Tibbles', 2),
(9, 'Mr. Meow', 2);

Now, I have a HTML page where I want to view the results on this table based on a drop-down box which filters by the obj_type column (1 = human names, 2 = feline names):

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC '-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN' 'http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd'><html xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'><head><title>SORTABLE EXAMPLE</title>
<link rel='stylesheet' href='http://code.jquery.com/ui/1.9.2/themes/base/jquery-ui.css'>
<script src='http://code.jquery.com/jquery-1.8.3.js'></script>
<script src='http://code.jquery.com/ui/1.9.2/jquery-ui.js'></script>
<style>
div.div_container {
background:#0F6;
max-width:400px;
padding: 10px 10px 10px 10px;
}
h2.h2_med_green {
display: inline;
font-weight:normal;
color:#090;
font-size: 1.4em;
}
ul {
list-style: none;
padding: 0px 0px 0px 0px;
margin: 0px 0px 0px 0px;
}
li.li_sortable {
cursor: hand;
cursor: pointer;
border-bottom: 1px dotted #999999;
background:#DDDDDD;
height: 31px;
line-height: 31px;
}
</style>
<script type='text/javascript'>
$(document).ready(function() {
//CALL SORTABLE FUNCTIONALITY
$('#ul_sortable').sortable();
//CALL AJAX RESULTS
showAJAXResults(1);
});
</script>
</head>
<body>
<div class="div_container">
Click and drag each round to re-order.<br />Object Type: 
<select id="ajax_select_type">
<option value="1">Human</option>
<option value="2">Feline</option>
</select>
<div id="ajax_results"></div>
</div>
<script>
$("#ajax_select_type").change( function() {
//CALL AJAX DBR
showAJAXResults($(this).val());
});
function showAJAXResults(obj_type){
//HTTP REQUEST CODE
if (window.XMLHttpRequest){xmlhttp=new XMLHttpRequest();} // code for IE7+, Firefox, Chrome, Opera, Safari
else{xmlhttp=new ActiveXObject("Microsoft.XMLHTTP");}// code for IE6, IE5
xmlhttp.onreadystatechange=function(){if (xmlhttp.readyState==4 && xmlhttp.status==200){document.getElementById("ajax_results").innerHTML=xmlhttp.responseText;}}
//ASSEMBLE THE PAGE CALL VALUE
var page_call_value = "ajax/ajax_page.php?t="+obj_type;
//CALL THE AJAX PAGE
xmlhttp.open("GET",page_call_value,true);
xmlhttp.send();
}
</script>
</body>
</html>

Finally, this page links to the following PHP page which is called via AJAX:

<?php
//DETERMINE INPUT VALUES
$object_type=$_GET["t"];
//CONNECT TO THE DATABASE
$con = mysql_connect("localhost","<USERNAME>","<PASSWORD>");
mysql_select_db("db_objects", $con);
//GET SQL QUERY
$q_db_result = "SELECT DISTINCT obj_id, obj_name, obj_type
FROM tbl_objects
WHERE obj_type = '".$object_type."'
ORDER BY obj_name";
//Execute the FULL_RESULT_QUERY QUERY
$sql_results = mysql_query($q_db_result) or die(mysql_error());
//TURN THE RESULTS RETRIEVED INTO AN ARRAY
$results_array = array();
while($row = mysql_fetch_assoc($sql_results)){
$results_array[$row['obj_id']]['obj_name'] = $row['obj_name'];
$results_array[$row['obj_id']]['obj_type'] = $row['obj_type'];
}
//ASSEMBLE THE RESULTS
if(sizeof($results_array)>0){
foreach($results_array as $obj_id => $result_details){
//DECLARE VARIABLES
$obj_name=$result_details['obj_name'];
$obj_type=$result_details['obj_type'];
$return_value .= "<li class='li_sortable' value='".$obj_id."'><h2 class='h2_med_green'>".$obj_name."</h2></li>\n";
}
//PUT THE UL TAGS AROUND THE HTML CODE
$return_value = "<ul id='ul_sortable'>\n".$return_value."</ul>\n";
//PUT THE RESULTS IN THE INNER CONTAINER DIV
$return_value = "<div id='ajax_results_ic' class='ajax_results_ic_2'>".$return_value."</div>";
}else{
$return_value = "NO RESULTS RETURNED";
}
//DISPLAY HTML CODE
echo $return_value;
//CLOSE DB CONNECTION
mysql_close($con);
?>

Now, if you can get this working you will notice that the sortable() functionality does not work. As I mentioned before, I think it has something to do with the fact that the DB results are generated on-the-fly by AJAX, so trying to declare/call the sortable() functionality in the $(document).ready(function() won't work, i.e.

$(document).ready(function() {
//CALL SORTABLE FUNCTIONALITY
$('#ul_sortable').sortable();
});

I'm not sure how to get around this - does anyone have any suggestions?

Thanks so much in advance!

Topic Participants
conorjmills

Using sortable() on AJAX-generated results

Using sortable() on AJAX-generated results

Topic Participants

conorjmills