TabsOnRails is a simple Rails plugin for creating tabs and navigation menus. It provides helpers for generating navigation menus with a flexible interface.
- Rails 3 or 4
Please note
- TabsOnRails 2.x requires Rails 3. Use TabsOnRails 1.3.x with Rails 2.
- TabsOnRails doesn't work with Rails 2.1 or lower (comment and commit).
RubyGems is the preferred way to install TabsOnRails and the best way if you want install a stable version.
$ gem install tabs_on_rails
Specify the Gem dependency in the Bundler Gemfile
.
gem "tabs_on_rails"
Use Bundler and the :git option if you want to grab the latest version from the Git repository.
In your template use the tabs_tag
helper to create your tab.
<%= tabs_tag do |tab| %>
<%= tab.home 'Homepage', root_path %>
<%= tab.dashboard 'Dashboard', dashboard_path %>
<%= tab.account 'Account', account_path %>
<% end %>
renders
<ul>
<li><a href="/">Homepage</a></li>
<li><a href="/dashboard">Dashboard</a></li>
<li><a href="/account">Account</a></li>
</ul>
The usage is similar to the Rails route file. You create named tabs with the syntax tab.name_of_tab
. The name you use creating a tab is the same you're going to refer to in your controller when you want to mark a tab as the current tab.
class DashboardController < ApplicationController
set_tab :dashboard
end
Now, if the action belongs to DashboardController
, the template will automatically render the following HTML code.
<ul>
<li><a href="/">Homepage</a></li>
<li class="custom"><span>Dashboard</span></li>
<li><a href="/account">Account</a></li>
</ul>
Use the current_tab
helper method if you need to access the value of current tab in your controller or template.
class DashboardController < ApplicationController
set_tab :dashboard
end
In your view
<p>The name of current tab is <%= current_tab %>.</p>
You can pass a hash of options to customize the style and the behavior of the tab item.
Behind the scenes, each time you create a tab, the #tab_for
method is invoked.
<%= tabs_tag do |tab| %>
<%= tab.home 'Homepage', root_path, :style => "padding: 10px" %>
<%= tab.dashboard 'Dashboard', dashboard_path %>
<% end %>
renders
<ul>
<li style="padding: 10px"><a href="/">Homepage</a></li>
<li class="custom"><span>Dashboard</span></li>
<li><a href="/account">Account</a></li>
</ul>
See TabsOnRails::Tabs::TabsBuilder#tab_for
for more details.
The open_tabs
and the close_tabs
methods can be customized with the :open_tabs
and :close_tabs
option.
<%= tabs_tag :open_tabs => { :id => "tabs", :class => "cool" } do |tab| %>
<%= tab.home 'Homepage', root_path %>
<%= tab.dashboard 'Dashboard', dashboard_path %>
<%= tab.account 'Account', account_path %>
<% end %>
renders
<ul id="tabs" class="cool">
<li><a href="/">Homepage</a></li>
<li><a href="/dashboard">Dashboard</a></li>
<li><a href="/account">Account</a></li>
</ul>
Further customizations require a custom Builder
(see below).
The set_tab
method understands all options you are used to pass to a Rails controller filter.
In fact, behind the scenes this method uses a before_filter
to store the tab in the @tab_stack
variable.
Taking advantage of Rails filter options, you can restrict a tab to a selected group of actions in the same controller.
class PostsController < ApplicationController
set_tab :admin
set_tab :posts, :only => %w(index show)
end
class ApplicationController < ActionController::Base
set_tab :admin, :if => :admin_controller?
def admin_controller?
self.class.name =~ /^Admin(::|Controller)/
end
end
Namespaces enable you to create and manage tabs in parallels. The best way to demonstrate namespace usage is with an example.
Let's assume your application provides a first level navigation menu with 3 elements: :home
, :dashboard
, :projects
. The relationship between your tabs and your controllers is 1:1 so you should end up with the following source code.
class HomeController
set_tab :home
end
class DashboardController
set_tab :dashboard
end
class ProjectsController
set_tab :projects
def first; end
def second; end
def third; end
end
The project controller contains 3 actions and you might want to create a second-level navigation menu. This menu should reflect the navigation status of the user in the project page.
Without namespaces, you wouldn't be able to accomplish this task because you already set the current tab value to :projects. You need to create a parallel navigation menu and uniquely identify it with a custom namespace. Let's call it :navigation.
class ProjectsController
set_tab :projects
# Create an other tab navigation level
set_tab :first, :navigation, :only => %w(first)
set_tab :second, :navigation, :only => %w(second)
set_tab :third, :navigation, :only => %w(third)
def first; end
def second; end
def third; end
end
Voilà! That's all you need to do. And you can create an unlimited number of namespaces as long as you use an unique name to identify them.
The default namespace is called :default
. Passing :default
as name is the same as don't using any namespace at all. The following lines are equivalent.
set_tab :projects
set_tab :projects, :default
To switch namespace in your template, just pass the :namespace
option to the tabs_tag
helper method.
<%= tabs_tag do |tab| %>
<%= tab.home 'Homepage', root_path %>
<%= tab.dashboard 'Dashboard', dashboard_path %>
<%= tab.projects 'Projects', projects_path %>
<% end %>
<%= tabs_tag :namespace => :navigation do |tab| %>
<%= tab.first 'First', project_first_path %>
<%= tab.second 'Second', project_second_path %>
<%= tab.third 'Account', project_third_path %>
<% end %>
As a bonus feature, the namespace needs to be unique within current request scope, not necessarily across the entire application.
Back to the previous example, you can reuse the same namespace in the other controllers. In this way, you can reuse your templates as well.
class HomeController
set_tab :home
end
class DashboardController
set_tab :dashboard
set_tab :index, :navigation, :only => %w(index)
set_tab :common, :navigation, :only => %w(foo bar)
# ...
end
class ProjectsController
set_tab :projects
set_tab :first, :navigation, :only => %w(first)
set_tab :second, :navigation, :only => %w(second)
set_tab :third, :navigation, :only => %w(third)
# ...
end
The Builder
is responsible for creating the tabs HTML code. This library is bundled with two Builders
:
Tabs::Builder
: this is the abstract interface for any custom builder.Tabs::TabsBuilder
: this is the default builder.
Builders act as formatters. A Builder encapsulates all the logic behind the tab creation including the code required to toggle tabs status.
When the tabs_tag
helper is called, it creates a new Tabs
instance with selected Builder. If you don't provide a custom builder, then Tabs::TabsBuilder
is used by default.
All builders must extend the base Tabs::Builder
class and implement at least the tab_for
method.
Additional overridable methods include:
open_tabs
: the method called before the tab setclose_tabs
: the method called after the tab settab_for
: the method called to create a single tab item
The following example creates a custom tab builder called MenuTabBuilder
.
class MenuTabBuilder < TabsOnRails::Tabs::Builder
def open_tabs(options = {})
@context.tag("ul", options, open = true)
end
def close_tabs(options = {})
"</ul>".html_safe
end
def tab_for(tab, name, options, item_options = {})
item_options[:class] = (current_tab?(tab) ? 'active' : '')
@context.content_tag(:li, item_options) do
@context.link_to(name, options)
end
end
end
In your view, simply pass the builder class to the tabs_tag
method.
<%= tabs_tag(:builder => MenuTabBuilder) do |tab| %>
<%= tab.home 'Homepage', root_path %>
<%= tab.dashboard, 'Dashboard', dashboard_path %>
<%= tab.account 'Account', account_path, :style => 'float: right;' %>
<% end %>
renders
<ul>
<li class=""><a href="/">Homepage</a></li>
<li class="active"><a href="/dashboard">Dashboard</a></li>
<li class="" style="float: right;"><a href="/account">Account</a></li>
</ul>
TabsOnRails was created and is maintained by Simone Carletti.
Copyright (c) 2009-2015 Simone Carletti. This is Free Software distributed under the MIT license.