This is a small gem for creating Google Calendar style 12 hour AM/PM time_select fields for Rails 3. It's based off of simple_time_select by tamoyal.
Just add this into your Gemfile followed by a bundle install:
gem "combined_time_select", "~> 0.0.1"
Here we have a model called Event with the start_time attribute that we will be using with combined_time_select.
Because Rails time_select fields submit separate values, there is some overhead on the controller side when we combine the fields into one. We can't rely on Rails to parse the input into a valid time anymore.
In the view you can do the following:
<%= f.time_select :start_time,
:combined => true,
:default => Time.now.change(:hour => 11, :min => 30),
:minute_interval => 15,
:time_separator => "",
:start_hour => 10,
:end_hour => 14 %>
This will create a combined time select starting at 10 AM and going till 2 PM with 15 minute intervals with a default of 11:30 AM. This will set the value for the start_time attribute on the object this form was created for.
On the controller side, we need to parse this attribute before we create a new object. combined_time_select provides a nice method for this called parse_time_select!. You can use this in your create action just before you initialize the new model:
def create
params[:event].parse_time_select! :start_time
@event = Event.new params[:event]
end
And voila! You're all set.
When the form gets submitted we will recieve a params hash like so:
{"utf8"=>"✓", "event"=>{"start_time(5i)"=>"10:00:00"}, "commit"=>"Save changes"}
A normal time_select wil use start_time(4i) for the hours and start_time(5i) for the minutes. The parse_time_select! will take all the start_time(Xi) fields, parse them into a Time object and set the params[:start_time] attribute to this object. The result after a parse_time_select!(attribute) looks like this:
{"utf8"=>"✓", "event"=>{"start_time"=>Fri, 23 Dec 2011 10:00:00 UTC +00:00}, "commit"=>"Save changes"}
This allows you to also seamlessly use a date_select field with combined_time_select.