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RAILS 3: nav_link helper for adding 'selected' class to navigation elements

UPDATE: It's a gem!

This helper has finally been moved into a gem called nav_lynx!

https://github.com/vigetlabs/nav_lynx

http://rubygems.org/gems/nav_lynx

Thanks to @brianjlandau and @reagent for getting that set up and tested!

Behold, the nav_link:

The nav_link helper works just like the standard Rails link_to helper, but adds a 'selected' class to your link (or its wrapper) if certain criteria are met. By default, if the link's destination url is the same url as the url of the current page, a default class of 'selected' is added to the link.

<%= nav_link 'My Page', my_path %>

When my_path is the same as the current page url, this outputs:

<a class="selected" href="http://example.com/page">My Page</a>

For more options and full usage details, see: http://viget.com/extend/rails-selected-nav-link-helper

Drop nav_link_helper.rb into app/helpers in your Rails 3.x app and enjoy.

UPDATE: Now with block support!

Same usage as link_to:

<%= nav_link 'http://example.com/page' do %>
  <strong>My Page</strong>
<% end %>
@leisti
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leisti commented Feb 6, 2013

This is useful. I have a couple of suggestions, though:

First, please copy the usage instructions from
http://viget.com/extend/rails-selected-nav-link-helper to README.markdown. You
never know when and if the article will become unavailable for some reason, and
it's a good idea to keep everything to do with one gist in one place.

Second, it would be nice if one could also give an option for defining a class
name to be given for unselected links, in case the user wants to define
properties for such links in a .css file.

Third, I didn't really see the point of methods that are called from only one
place in the code -- I think they can confuse rather than clarifying the code,
so I merged the code of methods link_classes, html_options and link to method
LinkGenerator::to_html.

I also made a couple of changes to parameter and variable names, for better
self-documentation and more clarity. These are the resulting changes to the
code (tested to work):

  def to_html
-   html = link
-   if @options[:wrapper]
-      html = content_tag(@options[:wrapper], html, :class => wrapper_classes)
-   end
-   html.html_safe
+   linked_classes = nil
+   if @html_options[:class]
+     linked_classes = @html_options[:class] + " #{class_name_to_be_used}"
+   elsif !@options[:wrapper_class]
+     linked_classes = class_name_to_be_used
+   end
+   merged_html_options = @html_options.merge(class: linked_classes)
+   the_link = link_to(@title, @path, merged_html_options)
+   if @options[:wrapper_class]
+     the_link = content_tag(@options[:wrapper_class], the_link, :class => all_wrapper_classes)
+   end
+   the_link.html_safe
  end

- def link_classes
-   if @html_options[:class]
-     @html_options[:class] + " #{selected_class}"
-   elsif !@options[:wrapper]
-     selected_class
-   end
- end

- def html_options
-   selected? ? @html_options.merge(:class => link_classes) : @html_options
- end

- def link
-   link_to(@title, @path, html_options)
- end

+ def unselected_class
+   @options[:unselected_class] || ''
+ end

+ def class_name_to_be_used
+   name = selected? ? selected_class : unselected_class
+ end

- def wrapper_classes
-   if selected?
-     "#{selected_class} #{@options[:wrapper_class]}"
-   else
-     @options[:wrapper_class]
-   end

+ def all_wrapper_classes
+   "#{class_name_to_be_used} #{@options[:other_wrapper_classes]}"
+ end

And this is a usage example, from a .html.erb file:

<%= nav_link "Good stuff", good_stuff_path, {}, {selected_class: 'active', unselected_class: 'inactive', wrapper_class: 'li'} %>

@greypants
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Author

Thanks for the feedback guys! All good stuff. I'll be moving this into a full repo soon for better collaboration.

@firedev
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firedev commented Mar 17, 2013

I think it should be nav_link_to and please make it a gem.

@meal
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meal commented Mar 24, 2013

I tried to used it with engine mounted, unfortunately it doesn't work in such case :(

@rubenrails
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+1 @greypants for accepting blocks!

@firedev
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firedev commented Apr 4, 2013

@C-E-Rios
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How can I make this work to ensure the when a user lands on the home-page the home tab is 'selected'?

Currently no tabs are selected when you land on the website.

Thanks.

@greypants
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@diegocouto
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It seems to be running smoothly also on Rails 4, so maybe the Gem dependency could be updated.

And by the way, thanks for this! :-)

@greendezine
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Just what I needed, and working great on Rails 4! In a similar fashion to how url_segment works, Is it possible to add the selected class to all pages under a sub-directory structure ?

For example: admin/products/item, admin/products/list etc.. Automatically adding the "selected" class to all urls within "/products" (within the same controller)

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