ActiveJax is a Rails plugin developed by Nicholas Schlueter that acts as a bridge between ActiveRecord and Prototype-backed JavaScript. This means you can call ActiveRecord model methods from JavaScript using AJAX. Example:

ActiveJax.Author.find_by_name(“Nicholas Schlueter”).each(function(author) {alert(author.name);});

I asked Nicholas how this differs from the existing Jester library developed by Thoughtbot. One significant difference is the syntax. ActiveJax’s mechanisms are all embedded underneath the ActiveJax object, whereas Jester offers up the “models” more directly within JavaScript. ActiveJax also doesn’t depend on the application providing RESTful services, it’s possible to call any method on the models. All this said, the motivations for using Jester versus ActiveJax cross significantly, so it’s worth checking out both libraries if this is an area that interests you. Read More