Semantic Forms

semantic_form_for is a Rails FormBuilder DSL that, like Formtastic, makes it easier to create semantically awesome, readily stylable, and wonderfully accessible HTML forms in your Rails applications.

However, it also tries not to do too much. Rather that trying to guess at input types, and provide its own sizeable set of customization options to each method, it wraps around the existing Rails field helpers.

Dependencies

semantic_form_for depends on Haml. Why? It's what I use, and it was marginally easier than writing it for ERB.

Syntax

= semantic_form_for @user do |user|
    = user.inputs 'Sign in' do
        = user.email_field    :email, :placeholder => 'me@example.com'
        = user.password_field :password
        = user.check_box,     :remember, 'Remember me'

        = user.submit 'Sign in'

This is equivalent to the following Haml.

= form_for @user do |user|
    %fieldset.inputs
        %legend Sign in
        %ol
            %li#user_email_input
                = user.label       :email
                = user.email_field :email, :placeholder => 'me@example.com'
            %li#user_password_input
                = user.label          :password
                = user.password_field :password
            %li#user_remember_input
                = user.check_box :remember
                = user.label     :remember, 'Remember me'
            %li
                = user.submit_tag 'Sign in'

That's it. All of the Rails field helpers you know and love work just like their normal FormBuilder counterparts, except for the minor addition of an optional second parameter to specify the field's label. Everything else works as expected, but gives you more semantic markup for free.