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

Using ruby on Sinatra ..

I m using bootstrap bare theme, here is the sample navbar code. Note the class name of the element -> .nav - as this is referred in java script.

/ Collect the nav links, forms, and other content for toggling
    #bs-example-navbar-collapse-1.collapse.navbar-collapse
      %ul.nav.navbar-nav
        %li
          %a{:href => "/demo/one"} Page One
        %li
          %a{:href => "/demo/two"} Page Two
        %li
          %a{:href => "/demo/three"} Page Three

in the view page (or partial) add this :javascript, this needs to be executed every time page loads.

haml view snippet ->

- content_for :javascript do
  :javascript
      $(function () {
          $.each($('.nav').find('li'), function() {
              $(this).toggleClass('active',
                  $(this).find('a').attr('href') == window.location.pathname);
          });
      });

In the javascript debugger make sure you have value of 'href' attribute matches with window.location.pathname. This is slightly different than the solution by @Zitrax which helped me fixing my issue.

Answer 2

not sure if you are asking about how the twitter bootstrap css is used, or the rails side. I'm assuming the rails side.

if so checkout the #link_to_if method or the #link_to_unless_current method

Answer 3

You can use something like (very similar to what @phil mentioned, but a little shorter):

<ul class="nav">
  <li class="<%= 'active' if current_page?(root_path) %>"><%= link_to "Home", root_path %></li>
  <li class="<%= 'active' if current_page?(about_path) %>"><%= link_to "About", about_path %></li>
  <li class="<%= 'active' if current_page?(contact_path) %>"><%= link_to "Contact", contact_path %></li>
</ul>

Answer 4

You should do it yourself by manipulating CSS classes. That is, if a user clicks on some link, then do something (target action), set previous link inactive and new link active.

If your links take you to the server (that is, make page reload), then you can just render active link correctly on the server. Otherwise, if you're doing some client-side stuff (switching tab panes or whatever), you have to use javascript.