Best way to add “current” class to nav in Rails 3

Question

I have some static pages in a navigation menu. I want to add a class like \"current\" to the item which is currently displaying.

The way I am doing so is to add tons

Answer 1

This version is based on @Skilldrick's one but allows you to add html content.

Thus, you can do:

nav_link "A Page", a_page_path

but also:

nav_link a_page_path do
  A Page
end

or any other html content (you can add an icon for instance).

Here the helper is:

  def nav_link(name = nil, options = nil, html_options = nil, &block)
    html_options, options, name = options, name, block if block_given?
    options ||= {}

    html_options = convert_options_to_data_attributes(options, html_options)

    url = url_for(options)
    html_options['href'] ||= url

    class_name = current_page?(url) ? 'current' : ''
    content_tag(:li, :class => class_name) do  
      content_tag(:a, name || url, html_options, &block)
    end
  end