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

Not truly an answer here, because I'm using quite the same way as you are. I've just defined helper methods to test for multiple controller or actions:

In application_helper.rb

  def controller?(*controller)
    controller.include?(params[:controller])
  end

  def action?(*action)
    action.include?(params[:action])
  end

Then you can use if controller?("homepage") && action?("index", "show") in your views or other helper methods…

Answer 2

Create a method in ApplicationHelper as below.

def active controllers, action_names = nil
  class_name = controllers.split(",").any? { |c| controller.controller_name == c.strip } ? "active" : ""
  if class_name.present? && action_names.present?
    return action_names.split(",").any? { |an| controller.action_name == an.strip } ? "active" : ""
  end
  class_name
end

Now use it in view as below use cases.

1. For all action of any specific controller

<li class="<%= active('controller_name')%>">
....
</li>

2. For all action of many controllers (with comma seperated)

<li class="<%= active('controller_name1,controller_name2')%>">
....
</li>

3. For specific action of any specific controller

<li class="<%= active('controller_name', 'action_name')%>">
....
</li>

4. For specific action of many controllers (with comma seperated)

<li class="<%= active('controller_name1,controller_name2', 'action_name')%>">
....
</li>

5. For some specific actions of any specific controller

<li class="<%= active('controller_name', 'index, show')%>">
....
</li>

6. For some specific actions of many controllers (with comma seperated)

<li class="<%= active('controller_name1,controller_name2', 'index, show')%>">
....
</li>

Hope it helps

Answer 3

To build off @Skilldrick 's answer...

If you add this code to application.js it will make sure that any dropdown menus with active children will also be marked as active...

$('.active').closest('li.dropdown').addClass('active');

To recap supportive code > Add a helper called nav_link:

def nav_link_to(link_text, link_path)
  class_name = current_page?(link_path) ? 'active' : ''

  content_tag(:li, :class => class_name) do
    link_to link_text, link_path
  end
end

used like:

nav_link_to 'Home', root_path

which will produce HTML like

<li class="active"><a href="/">Home</a></li>

Answer 4

I use an awesome gem called Tabs on Rails.

Answer 5

I use a simple helper like this for top level links so the /stories/my-story page highlights the /stories link

def nav_link text, url

  active = (url == request.fullpath || (url != '/' && request.fullpath[0..(url.size-1)] == url))

  "<li#{ active ? " class='selected'" : '' }><a href='#{url}'>#{text}</a></li>".html_safe

end

Answer 6

I made a helper called nav_link:

def nav_link(link_text, link_path)
  class_name = current_page?(link_path) ? 'current' : ''

  content_tag(:li, :class => class_name) do
    link_to link_text, link_path
  end
end

used like:

nav_link 'Home', root_path

which will produce HTML like

<li class="current"><a href="/">Home</a></li>