Quick intro on how to do ajax on rails. This was simplified from my autocomplete code. In this example the autocomplete is removed and just ajax is presented.

gistfile1.txt

#routes.rb
  get 'scraped_episodes_search'  => 'scraped_episodes#search'




#scraped_episodes_controller.rb
  # used for autocomplete search
  def search

    searchTerm = params[:s]

    # only search db if 3 or more chars
    if( searchTerm.length >= 3 )
      @searchItems = ScrapedEpisode.find(:all, :conditions => ["title LIKE ?", "%#{searchTerm}%"])
    else
      fake = ScrapedEpisode.new
      fake.title = "..."
      @searchItems = [fake]
    end
    
    respond_to do |format|
      format.html # this will render search.html.erb
      format.json { render json: @searchItems }
    end

  end




# whatever.erb
<script type="text/javascript">

  			var params = {};
				params.s = 'searching for text';

				//pass request to server
				$.getJSON("/scraped_episodes_search.json", params,
					function(data) {

					alert(JSON.stringify(data));
				
							
					} // end of callback
				); // end of getJSON

</script>