Using jquery tokeninput and acts_as_taggable_on

I've implemented the framework outlined in this post: How to use jquery-Tokeninput and Acts-as-taggable-on with some difficulty. This is working insofar as prepopulating with the appropriate theme and ajax search, but when I enter a new tag, it is immediately deleted when the text area loses focus. I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong. Here's some of my relevant code:

User Model (does the tagging):

class User < ActiveRecord::Base
[...]
# tagging
acts_as_tagger

Item Model (accepts a tag):

class Item < ActiveRecord::Base
attr_accessible :title, :tag_list

#tagging functionality
acts_as_taggable_on :tags

Item Controller:

def tags 
@tags = ActsAsTaggableOn::Tag.where("tags.name LIKE ?", "%#{params[:q]}%") 
 respond_to do |format|
  format.json { render :json => @tags.collect{|t| {:id => t.name, :name => t.name }}}
 end
end

On my form partial:

<%= f.input :tag_list, :label => "Tags", :input_html => { :class => "text_field short", "data-pre" => @item.tags.map(&:attributes).to_json }, :hint  => "separate tags by a space"  %>

my routes:

get "items/tags" => "items#tags", :as => :tags
resources :items

[almost there!!!]

the js on the form [note: the id of the element is assigned dynamically]:

<script type="text/javascript">
$(function() {
  $("#item_tag_list").tokenInput("/art_items/tags", {
    prePopulate:       $("#item_tag_list").data("pre"),
    preventDuplicates: true,
    crossDomain: false,
    theme: "facebook"
  });
});
</script>

If you still want to use Jquery TokenInput and add tags there are different ways to do it.

1. This is actually from my same question; the newest answer: How to use jquery-Tokeninput and Acts-as-taggable-on

This could go in your controller.

 def tags
    query = params[:q]
    if query[-1,1] == " "
      query = query.gsub(" ", "")
      Tag.find_or_create_by_name(query)
    end

    #Do the search in memory for better performance

    @tags = ActsAsTaggableOn::Tag.all
    @tags = @tags.select { |v| v.name =~ /#{query}/i }
    respond_to do |format|
      format.json{ render :json => @tags.map(&:attributes) }
    end
  end

This will create the tag, whenever the space bar is hit.

You could then add this search setting in the jquery script:

noResultsText: 'No result, hit space to create a new tag',

It's a little dirty but it works for me.

2. Check out this guy's method: https://github.com/vdepizzol/jquery-tokeninput

He made a custom entry ability:

$(function() {
  $("#book_author_tokens").tokenInput("/authors.json", {
    crossDomain: false,
    prePopulate: $("#book_author_tokens").data("pre"),
    theme: "facebook",
    allowCustomEntry: true
  });
});

3. Not to sure about this one but it may help: Rails : Using jquery tokeninput (railscast #258) to create new entries

4. This one seems legit as well: https://github.com/loopj/jquery-tokeninput/pull/219

I personally like the first one, seems easiest to get and install.