This is a simple plugin extracted from Mephisto for creating permalinks from attributes.
class Article < ActiveRecord::Base has_permalink :title end
This will escape the title, making it fit to use in a URL in the after_validation callback.
Use PermalinkFu.escape to escape a string manually if you like.
If you’re having issues with Iconv, you can manually tweak PermalinkFu.translation_to PermalinkFu.translation_from. These are set to nil if Iconv is not loaded. You can also manually set them to nil if you don’t want to use iconv.
You can now add conditions to #has_permalink like so:
class Article < ActiveRecord::Base has_permalink :title, :if => Proc.new { |article| article.needs_permalink? } end
Use the :if or :unless options to specify a Proc, method, or string to be called or evaluated. The permalink will only be generated if the option evaluates to true.
Make permalink_fu update your permalink everytime the dependent field(s) change.
class Article < ActiveRecord::Base has_permalink :title, :update => true end
This will update your permalink every time title changes. Rails versions with _changed? methods will reduce the checks for uniqueness to only when the permalink field is changed.
Without :update set to true, your permalink will be set one time and subsequent changes to the field (title in this example) will not affect the permalink field. To regenerate the permalink field, set it to nil or a blank string within your model.
Old versions of rails without _changed? attribute support will result in the permalink field being regenerated every save.
Permalink was not being checked for uniqueness when set directly with permalink= on rails versions with _changed?
Eliminate SEO words when the size of the title is 50 characters or greater. You can either pass the value of true:
class Article < ActiveRecord::Base has_permalink :title, :strip_words => true end
or pass options, like
class Article < ActiveRecord::Base has_permalink :title, :strip_words => {:min_length => 40, :words => %w(blah blah)} end