How to get Twitter-Bootstrap navigation to show active link?

Question

I\'m not understanding how Twitter Bootstrap does active links for the navigation. If I have a regular navigation like this (with ruby on rails linking):

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Answer 1

I used a helper to implement this in the style of Rails' form helpers.

In a helper (e.g. app/helpers/ApplicationHelper.rb):

def nav_bar
  content_tag(:ul, class: "nav navbar-nav") do
    yield
  end
end

def nav_link(text, path)
  options = current_page?(path) ? { class: "active" } : {}
  content_tag(:li, options) do
    link_to text, path
  end
end

Then, in a view (e.g. app/views/layouts/application.html.erb):

<%= nav_bar do %>
  <%= nav_link 'Home', root_path %>
  <%= nav_link 'Posts', posts_path %>
  <%= nav_link 'Users', users_path %>
<% end %>

This example produces (when on the 'users' page):

<ul class="nav navbar-nav">
  <li><a href="/">Home</a></li>
  <li><a href="/posts">Posts</a></li>
  <li class="active"><a href="/users">Users</a></li>
</ul>

Answer 2

https://github.com/twg/active_link_to

<%= active_link_to 'Users', users_path, :wrap_tag => :li %>

#=> <li class="active"><a href="/users">Users</a></li>

Answer 3

You may define a helper method in application_helper.rb

def create_link(text, path)
  class_name = current_page?(path) ? 'active' : ''

  content_tag(:li, class: class_name) do
    link_to text, path
  end
end

Now you can use like:

create_link 'xyz', any_path which would render as

<li class="active">
  <a href="/any">xyz</a>
</li>

Hope it helps!

Answer 4

For each link:

<% if current_page?(home_path) -%><li class="active"><% else -%><li><% end -%>
  <%= link_to 'Home', home_path %>
</li>

or even

<li <% if current_page?(home_path) -%>class="active"<% end -%>>
  <%= link_to 'Home', home_path %>
</li>

Answer 5

I use this for each li:

<li><%= link_to_unless_current('Home', root_path) { link_to('Home', root_path, class: 'active') } %></li>

Answer 6

I wrote simple helper method using build in view helper current_page? when you can specify custom class name in html_options hash.

def active_link_to(name = nil, options = nil, html_options = nil, &block)
  active_class = html_options[:active] || "active"
  html_options.delete(:active)
  html_options[:class] = "#{html_options[:class]} #{active_class}" if current_page?(options)
  link_to(name, options, html_options, &block)
end

Examples (when you are on root_path route):

<%= active_link_to "Main", root_path %>
# <a href="/" class="active">Main</a>

<%= active_link_to "Main", root_path, class: "bordered" %>
# <a href="/" class="bordered active">Main</a>

<%= active_link_to "Main", root_path, class: "bordered", active: "disabled" %>
# <a href="/" class="bordered disabled">Main</a>