Rails - how to serialize a tree not in a form

I started with the standard scriptaculous drag and drop tree, and that all works fine.

Then started implementing this: http://www.开发者_如何学JAVAartweb-design.de/2008/5/30/scriptaculous-sortabletree which gives a good drag and drop tree

Where I am stuck is how to get serialize the tree (unordered list)? It's not in a form, and I can't find a way to serialize it to move onto setting up the AJAX update.

Well, here's the answer I developed, in case anyone else has to deal with this. Sure there's a better way to do this etc.

function walk_tree(node, parent_stem, at_root ) {

    if ( node == null || node == undefined || $(node) == undefined )
        return ;

    var i = 0 ;
    var serialized_tree = '' ;
    var stem = '' ;

    // loop through siblings
    do {

        // build up the serialized statement for this node
        stem = parent_stem + '[' + i + ']' ;
        serialized_tree += (at_root ? '' : '&' ) + stem + '[id]=' + $(node).identify().gsub('page_','')

        // if node has children, then recurse...
        if ( $(node).down('li') != undefined )
            serialized_tree += walk_tree($(node).down('li'), stem, false) ;

        // carry on finding siblings
        node = $(node).next('li') ;
        i++ ;
    } while ( $(node) != undefined ) ;

    return(serialized_tree) ;

} ;