Bring code from view into a popup in Rails - ruby

Question

I want to bring this code from my view html into a popup when a link is clicked
Is that possible in Ruby on Rails? I already have the pop up working but I'm wondering about the code to show just the comments:
<div class = "comments"><% if post.comments.exists? %>
<% post.comments.each do |comment| %>
<%= image_tag("http://www.gravatar.com/someavatarlink %) <!-- Retrieves Gravatar -->
<%= link_to comment.user.name, comment.user %>
<span class="timestamp"><%= time_ago_in_words(comment.created_at) %> ago</span>
<span class="content2"><%= comment.comment_content %></span>
<% end %>
<% end %></div>
Added Ajax call to _comment_form.html.erb
<%= link_to "Link", comment, :remote => true %>
Comments
<% end %></div></div>
<div id ="modal" class = "comments"><% if post.comments.exists? %>
<% post.comments.each do |comment| %>
<%= link_to comment.user.name, comment.user %>
<span class="timestamp"><%= time_ago_in_words(comment.created_at) %> ago</span>
<span class="content2"><%= comment.comment_content %></span>
<% end %>
<% end %></div>
Added def show into comments controller
class CommentsController < ApplicationController
def new
#post = post.new(params[:post])
end
def show
#comment = Comment.find(params[:id])
respond_to do |format|
format.js
end
def create
#post = post.find(params[:micropost_id])
#comment = Comment.new(params[:comment])
#comment.post = #post
#comment.user = current_user
if #comment.save
redirect_to(:back)
else
render 'shared/_comment_form'
end
end
end
Created show.erb.js and put it into 'comments' and 'shared' folders
$("#popup").html('<%= escape_javascript(render "comments") %>');
Then finally wrote my partial which is in comments/_comment.html.erb
<% if post.comments.exists? %>
<% post.comments.each do |comment| %>
<%= link_to comment.user.name, comment.user %>
<span class="timestamp"><%= time_ago_in_words(comment.created_at) %> ago</span>
<span class="content2"><%= comment.comment_content %></span>
<% end %>
<% end %>

Answer 1

1. Ajax call
To retrieve the data you use an Ajax call.
<%= link_to "Link", comment, :remote => true %>
Rails will evaluate these requests and will look for a .js view first (it will use .html if it does not exist).
Make also sure that the controller accepts requests to .js like
def show
#comment = Comment.find(params[:id])
respond_to do |format|
format.js
end
end
2. write js view
Add a show.erb.js view to your Comments . This is a JavaScript file with ERB evaluation.
In this template use your js popup code and tell it to fill a div with your html code like so:
$("#popup").html('<%= escape_javascript(render #comment) %>');
This will render the comment. The only thing we need then is a partial to render the html of the comment.
3. write partial for html
Write a partial for the view part you want to have in the popup. This can then be used in a normal html view or the js view. To make it work with the code above call it _comment.html.erb
To know more about partials you can check the guides here:
http://guides.rubyonrails.org/layouts_and_rendering.html#using-partials