Custom form helpers

Question

Is there a way that I can create a custom form helper so that instead of:

special_field_tag :object, :method

I can achieve something like:<

Answer 1

@Tilendor, thanks so much for the pointers. Here is an example of an enum_select form tag helper that uses Rails 4.1 enums to automatically populate the options of a select tag:

# helpers/application_helper.rb
module ApplicationHelper
  class ActionView::Helpers::FormBuilder
    # http://stackoverflow.com/a/2625727/1935918
    include ActionView::Helpers::FormTagHelper
    include ActionView::Helpers::FormOptionsHelper
    def enum_select(name, options = {})
      # select_tag "company[time_zone]", options_for_select(Company.time_zones
      #   .map { |value| [value[0].titleize, value[0]] }, selected: company.time_zone)
      select_tag @object_name + "[#{name}]", options_for_select(@object.class.send(name.to_s.pluralize)
        .map { |value| [value[0].titleize, value[0]] }, selected: @object.send(name))
    end
  end
end

The trickiest construct is @object.class.send(name.to_s.pluralize) which produces a hash of available values (e.g., Company.time_zones). Putting it in helpers/application_helper.rb makes it automatically available. It is used like:

<%= f.label :billing_status %>:
<%= f.enum_select :billing_status %>