Generate menus, handling current selection and visibility, without the
pain.
Displaying a menu in your application, is not a trivial task. Some of the
points you must take into account are
- Different actions (
link_to,link_to_remote). - Different rendering styles.
- Current selected item feedback.
- Hiding or showing items according to different conditions.
Menuer is a Rails plugin that simplifies all this. It has a simple but
powerful interface that makes simple tasks easy, but allows a great
flexibility when needed.
In your ApplicationHelper module:
def main_menu
# this menu will render using link_to, selected item will have
# 'selected' class in its link node.
build_menu(self, :class => :selected) do |menu|
# this item will go to an external URL.
menu.add_tab('Google', 'http://google.com')
# this item will go to a controller/action, and will be highlighted while
# current page is that corresponding to that controller and action.
menu.add_tab_with_selected_options('Other Users', {:controller => :users, :action => :index})
# this item will go to account_path action, and will be highlighted,
# as long as the current controller name matches the given regular
# expression.
menu.add_tab_with_selected_match('My Account', account_path(current_user), /^accounts$/)
# this item will go to public_path action, and will be highlighted,
# as long as the current controller name matches /^public$/, and the current
# action matches /^home$/.
menu.add_tab_with_selected_match('Home', public_path, /^public$/, /^home$/)
end
end
In your layout template:
<div class="menu" >
<ul>
<% main_menu.each do |tab| %>
<%= content_tag(:li, tab.render)%>
<% end %>
</ul>
</div>
If the previous demo is not enough for your needs, you can do things link
the following (but don’t forget to check the documentation)
tab = menu.add_tab('My Car', my_car_url)
# this will show the tab, only when there is a current_user and he has a car.
# Otherwise, the menu item will not appear.
tab.visible_on {current_user && current_user.car}
# page_selector allows to fine tune when the item is highlighted.
# Here, we are asking to highlight only when @car variable
# equals the current_user car
tab.page_selector.on {current_user && current_user.car == @car}
# we can OR conditions on the page selector
tab = menu.add_tab('Profile', user_data_path(current_user))
tab.page_selector.on_matching_regex(/^(user_data|images|jobs)$/)
tab.page_selector.on_options({:controller => :hobbies})
tab.page_selector.on {@my_profile}
# we can use dynamic URLs for the items
tab = menu.add_tab_with_selected_options('Best Friend', lambda {user_data_path(@my_friend)})
The usual mechanism for plugin installation
ruby script/plugin install git://github.com/paraseba/menuer.git
Or clone the git repository.
Copyright © 2008 Sebastián B. Galkin, released under the MIT license