Hidden Features of Ruby on Rails [closed]

Answer 1

I'm currently in love with div_for and content_tag_for

<% div_for(@comment) do %>
  <!-- code to display your comment -->
<% end %>

The above code renders this:

<div id="comment_123" class="comment">
  <!-- code to display your comment -->
</div>

Want the CSS class to be comment other_class? No problem:

<% div_for(@comment, :class => 'other_class') do %>
  <!-- code to display your comment -->
<% end %>

Want a span and not a div? No problem, content_tag_for to the rescue!

<% content_tag_for(:span, @comment) do %>
<% end %>

# Becomes...

<span id="comment_123" class="comment">
  <!-- code to display your comment -->
</span>

content_tag_for is also great if you want to prefix you id. I use it for loading gifs.

<% content_tag_for(:span, @comment, 'loading') do %>
  <%= image_tag 'loading.gif' -%>
<% end %>

# Becomes...

<span id="loading_comment_123" class="comment">
  <img src="loading.gif" />
</span>

Answer 2

To avoid duplicate form submissions, Rails has a nice option for submit tags:

submit_tag "Submit", :disable_with => "Saving..."

This adds behavior to the submit button to disable it once clicked, and to display "Saving..." instead of "Submit".

Rails 4+

 DEPRECATION WARNING: :disable_with option is deprecated and 
 will be removed from Rails 4.1. Use 'data: { disable_with: 'Text' }' instead.

Thus the above becomes:

submit_tag 'Submit', data: { disable_with: 'Text' }

Answer 3

If you have a model with some class methods and some named scopes:

class Animal < ActiveRecord::Base
  named_scope 'nocturnal', :conditions => {'nocturnal' => true}
  named_scope 'carnivorous', :conditions => {'vegetarian' => true}

  def self.feed_all_with(food)
    self.all.each do |animal|
      animal.feed_with(food)
    end
  end
end

Then you can call the class methods through the named scope:

if night_time?
  Animal.nocturnal.carnivorous.feed_all_with(bacon)
end