Rails, Prototype, and JQuery in Harmony (or how to replace Prototype with JQuery)
Thursday, April 8th, 2010
It has become common practice to use JQuery as the javascript library of choice for Ruby on Rails applications. If you have a Rails app already using Prototype, it usually isn’t feasible to replace it in one swoop. And sometimes, you just simply need both to work at the same time. Whether you want to use both in unison (not recommended as a long-term strategy), or you want to gradually migrate from Prototype to JQuery, it’s not as scary as you may think.
The secret is that it is difficult to get Prototype to play nicely with JQuery, while it is rather trivial to get JQuery to play nicely with Prototype. This may seem like a minor distinction, but it is one that will save you a lot of headaches.
Use Prototype/Scriptaculous with JQuery
First, in our application layout, we’re going to get rid of <%=javascript_include_tag :defaults %> and include each javascript file explicitly just to make things a little less magicky and a little more straight forward.
