Rails html monkey patch. More hassle than it's worth, handy to have none-the-less.

html_rails_mp.rb

# This is an absolutely fucking infuriating monkey patch that allows rails
# to output valid html 4 (i.e leave some tag open)
# See http://rails.lighthouseapp.com/projects/8994/tickets/1565-patch-allow-disabling-of-self-closing-tags-generation-taghelpertag
# Dogmatic, clueless or just plain blind arrogance?

module ActionView
  module Helpers
    
    module TagHelper
      include ERB::Util
 
      mattr_accessor :generate_non_self_closing_tags
      self.generate_non_self_closing_tags = false
      alias :generate_non_self_closing_tags? :generate_non_self_closing_tags

      def self.included(base) #:nodoc:
        base.mattr_accessor :generate_non_self_closing_tags
        base.generate_non_self_closing_tags ||= generate_non_self_closing_tags
      end

      BOOLEAN_ATTRIBUTES = %w(disabled readonly multiple checked).to_set
      BOOLEAN_ATTRIBUTES.merge(BOOLEAN_ATTRIBUTES.map(&:to_sym))
 
      def tag(name, options = nil, open = generate_non_self_closing_tags?, escape = true)
        open = options.delete('open') || open
        escape = options.delete('escape') || escape
        "<#{name}#{tag_options(options, escape) if options}#{open ? ">" : " />"}"
      end

    end
    
    #
    # Override simple format, allow open <br>
    #
    module TextHelper
      def simple_format(text, html_options={})
        start_tag = tag('p', html_options, true)
        text = text.to_s.dup
        text.gsub!(/\r\n?/, "\n")                    # \r\n and \r -> \n
        text.gsub!(/\n\n+/, "</p>\n\n#{start_tag}")  # 2+ newline  -> paragraph
        text.gsub!(/([^\n]\n)(?=[^\n])/, '\1<br>')   # 1 newline   -> br
        text.insert 0, start_tag
        text << "</p>"
      end      
    end
    
  end
end