Is there a way that I can create a custom form helper so that instead of:
special_field_tag :object, :method
I can achieve something like:
form.special_field :method
Yes, you can add to the FormBuilder class and get access to the object passed into the form_for. I've done this for a lot of things: dates, times, measurements, etc. Heres an example:
class ActionView::Helpers::FormBuilder
include ActionView::Helpers::TagHelper
include ActionView::Helpers::FormTagHelper
include ActionView::Helpers::FormOptionsHelper
include ActionView::Helpers::CaptureHelper
include ActionView::Helpers::AssetTagHelper
# Accepts an int and displays a smiley based on >, <, or = 0
def smile_tag(method, options = {})
value = @object.nil? ? 0 : @object.send(method).to_i
options[:id] = field_id(method,options[:index])
smiley = ":-|"
if value > 0
smiley = ":-)"
elsif smiley < 0
smiley = ":-("
end
return text_field_tag(field_name(method,options[:index]),options) + smiley
end
def field_name(label,index=nil)
output = index ? "[#{index}]" : ''
return @object_name + output + "[#{label}]"
end
def field_id(label,index=nil)
output = index ? "_#{index}" : ''
return @object_name + output + "_#{label}"
end
end
Which you can use like this:
<% form_for @quiz do |f| %>
<%= f.smile_tag(:score) %>
<% end %>
There are some instance variables created by Rails that you can access in these helper methods:
I wrote the field_id and field_name methods to create these attributes on the HTML input elements the same way the regular helpers do, I'm sure there is a way to tie into the same methods that Rails uses, but I haven't found it yet.
The sky is the limit on what you can do with these helper methods, they simply return strings. You can create entire HTML tables or pages in one, but you better have a good reason to.
This file should be added in the app/helpers folder