rails way to make a tag class active in view?

rubyonrails-talk
1

(resending without being signed, sorry if the original shows up)

for example 3 is in active state. right now all i can think of is in each action, just set a variable like @active = 'active' or '', but not sure what to do with the span.

    <ul>       <!-- The link you call "active" will show up as a darker tab -->       <li><a href="index.html">1</a></li>       <li><a href="index.html">2</a></li>       <li class="active"> <span>3</span> </li>       <li><a href="index.html">4</a></li>       <li><a href="index.html">5</a></li>     </ul>

--

Assuming that the "index.html" would actually be based on the 1, 2, etc.:

<ul> <% for example in @examples %> <li><%= link_to_unless_current example, example_path(example) do |text|            content_tag(:span, text, :class => 'active')          end %></li> <% end %> </ul>

When @examples = [1,2,3,4,5] and example_path(3) => "/example/3"

Gives: <ul> <li><a href="/example/1">1</li> <li><a href="/example/2">2</li> <li><span class='active'>3</span></li> <li><a href="/example/4">4</li> <li><a href="/example/5">5</li> </ul>

Is that what you're looking for? The link_to_if, link_to_unless, link_to_unless_current helpers take a block that is passed the text of the link when the condition isn't satisfied for making the link.

-Rob

Rob Biedenharn http://agileconsultingllc.com Rob@AgileConsultingLLC.com

2

Well, if you need to have <li class="active"><span> ... rather than <li><span class="active> ... Then you might have to restructure a bit (a listitem_link_to() might
work).

If you can live with decorating the contents of the span rather than
the li, you can do this:

<li><%= link_to_unless_current(example,                                 :action => 'get_category',                                 :category => example) do |text|             content_tag(:span, text, :class => 'active')           end %></li>

and if the current page's URL path matches what the parameters
construct, the link will be rendered.

You might also do: (nevermind, the alternative gets too ugly to even
consider. Use a custom helper method if you want to keep your view
cleaner)

Look at the documentation for current_page? and the various link_to
helpers and you ought to be able to figure it out. If you need more
help, show us your actual view and controller code snippets.

-Rob