how can i call a controller action directly from a javascript function . .

Question

I have the following code that shows a jquery ui dialog form with data for the user to enter:

$("#dialog").dialog({
            bgiframe: true,
            autoOpen: false,
            height: 300,
            modal: true,
            buttons: {
                'Create an account': function() {
                    var bValid = true;
                    allFields.removeClass('ui-state-error');

                    bValid = bValid && checkLength(name, "username", 3, 16);
                    bValid = bValid && checkLength(email, "email", 6, 80);
                    bValid = bValid && checkLength(password, "password", 5, 16);

                    bValid = bValid && checkRegexp(name, /^[a-z]([0-9a-z_])+$/i, "Username may consist of a-z, 0-9, underscores, begin with a letter.");
                    // From jquery.validate.js (by joern), contributed by Scott Gonzalez: http://projects.scottsplayground.com/email_address_validation/
                    bValid = bValid && checkRegexp(email, /^((([a-z]|\d|[!#\$%&'\*\+\-\/=\?\^_`{\|}~]|[\u00A0-\uD7FF\uF900-\uFDCF\uFDF0-\uFFEF])+(\.([a-z]|\d|[!#\$%&'\*\+\-\/=\?\^_`{\|}~]|[\u00A0-\uD7FF\uF900-\uFDCF\uFDF0-\uFFEF])+)*)|((\x22)((((\x20|\x09)*(\x0d\x0a))?(\x20|\x09)+)?(([\x01-\x08\x0b\x0c\x0e-\x1f\x7f]|\x21|[\x23-\x5b]|[\x5d-\x7e]|[\u00A0-\uD7FF\uF900-\uFDCF\uFDF0-\uFFEF])|(\\([\x01-\x09\x0b\x0c\x0d-\x7f]|[\u00A0-\uD7FF\uF900-\uFDCF\uFDF0-\uFFEF]))))*(((\x20|\x09)*(\x0d\x0a))?(\x20|\x09)+)?(\x22)))@((([a-z]|\d|[\u00A0-\uD7FF\uF900-\uFDCF\uFDF0-\uFFEF])|(([a-z]|\d|[\u00A0-\uD7FF\uF900-\uFDCF\uFDF0-\uFFEF])([a-z]|\d|-|\.|_|~|[\u00A0-\uD7FF\uF900-\uFDCF\uFDF0-\uFFEF])*([a-z]|\d|[\u00A0-\uD7FF\uF900-\uFDCF\uFDF0-\uFFEF])))\.)+(([a-z]|[\u00A0-\uD7FF\uF900-\uFDCF\uFDF0-\uFFEF])|(([a-z]|[\u00A0-\uD7FF\uF900-\uFDCF\uFDF0-\uFFEF])([a-z]|\d|-|\.|_|~|[\u00A0-\uD7FF\uF900-\uFDCF\uFDF0-\uFFEF])*([a-z]|[\u00A0-\uD7FF\uF900-\uFDCF\uFDF0-\uFFEF])))\.?$/i, "eg. [email protected]");
                    bValid = bValid && checkRegexp(password, /^([0-9a-zA-Z])+$/, "Password field only allow : a-z 0-9");

                    if (bValid) {
                        $('#users tbody').append('<tr>' +
      '<td>' + name.val() + '</td>' +
      '<td>' + email.val() + '</td>' +
      '<td>' + password.val() + '</td>' +
      '</tr>');
                        $(this).dialog('close');
                    }
                },
                Cancel: function() {
                    $(this).dialog('close');
                }
            },
            close: function() {
                allFields.val('').removeClass('ui-state-error');
            }
        });

if you see, it calls this code when successful:

 if (bValid) {
                        $('#users tbody').append('<tr>' +
      '<td>' + name.val() + '</td>' +
      '<td>' + email.val() + '</td>' +
      '<td>' + password.val() + '</td>' +
      '</tr>');
                        $(this).dialog('close');
                    }

instead of sticking in this html inside the current page, i want to grab all of the fields and send them to a controller action. any suggestion on how can you build up a controller action directly from javascript?

Answer 1

You can make a controller action the way you usually do, and return raw text by calling the Content method. (You can also return JSON, JavaScript, a view, or anything else)

You can call the action using jQuery AJAX, like this:

$.post('/controller/action/whatever', { name: name.val(), email: email.val(), password: password.val() });

Answer 2

Use jQuery to do a partial post back.

Something like this;

$.post("/Controller/jQueryMethod", { param: paramValue }, function(newCommentListHTML) {
  //do something interesting with the html
});

The above posts a single paramter. It then takes the retrurned html, created in c# with RenderPartial and uses it to render the new partial control.