Tabnav

Tabnav is a helper for generating navigation bars. It allows you to simply specify highlighting rules for each tab.

Homepage: github.com/unboxed/tabnav
Issues: github.com/unboxed/tabnav/issues

Some Examples

Simple Example

In your view:

<%
  render_tabnav do |n|
    n.add_tab do |t|
      t.named "Home"
      t.links_to root_path
      t.highlights_on :controller => :home, :action => :index
    end
    n.add_tab do |t|
      t.named "Froobles"
      t.links_to froobles_path
      t.highlights_on :controller => :froobles
    end
  end
%>

On home/index will output:

<ul>
  <li class="active"><a href="/">Home</a></li>
  <li><a href="/froobles">Froobles</a></li>
</ul>

On any action in FrooblesController will output:

<ul>
  <li><a href="/">Home</a></li>
  <li class="active"><a href="/froobles">Froobles</a></li>
</ul>

See the highlights_on method of Tabnav::Tab for full details of the highlighting logic.

Nested navbars

In your view:

<%
  render_tabnav do |n|
    n.add_tab do |t|
      t.named "Home"
      t.links_to root_path
      t.highlights_on :controller => :home, :action => :index
    end
    n.add_sub_nav do |sn|
      sn.named "Froobles"
      sn.links_to froobles_path
      sn.highlights_on :controller => :froobles

      sn.add_tab do |t|
        t.named "New Frooble"
        t.links_to new_frooble_path
        t.highlights_on :controller => :froobles, :action => :new
        t.highlights_on :controller => :froobles, :action => :create
      end

      sn.add_tab do |t|
        t.named "Search Froobles"
        t.links_to search_froobles_path
        t.highlights_on :controler => :froobles, :action => :search
      end
    end
  end
%>

On FrooblesController#new will output:

<ul>
  <li><a href="/">Home</a></li>
  <li class="active">
    <a href="/froobles">Froobles</a>
    <ul>
      <li class="active"><a href="/froobles/new">New Frooble</a></li>
      <li><a href="/froobles/search">Search Froobles</a></li>
    </ul>
  </li>
</ul>

Navbars can be nested arbritarily deep.

Options for controlling markup

View:

<%
  render_tabnav :id => "main_navigation", :class => "clearfix" do |n|
    n.add_tab :class => "home_tab" do |t|
      t.named "Home"
      t.links_to root_path
      t.highlights_on :controller => :home, :action => :index
    end
    n.add_tab :class => "heading" do |t|
      t.named "Froobles Heading"
      t.highlights_on :controller => :froobles
    end
    n.add_sub_nav :id => 'froobles' do |sn|
      sn.named "Froobles"

      sn.add_tab do |t|
        t.named "All Froobles"
        t.links_to froobles_path, :target => "_blank", :rel => "http://foo.bar/"
        t.highlights_on :controller => :froobles, :action => :index
      end
    end
  end
%>

On froobles/index will output:

<ul id="main_navigation" class="clearfix">
  <li class="home_tab"><a href="/">Home</a></li>
  <li class="heading active"><span>Froobles Heading</span></li>
  <li id="froobles">
    <span>Froobles</span>
    <ul>
      <li class="active"><a href="/froobles" target="_blank" rel="http://foo.bar/">All Froobles</a></li>
    </ul>
  </li>
</ul>

Custom tab partial

It is also possible to specify a partial to be used to generate the tab contents. e.g.:

View:

<%
  render_tabnav :html => {:id => "main_navigation", :class => "clearfix"} do |n|
    n.tab_partial "/shared/my_custom_tab"
    n.add_tab :html => {:class => "home_tab"} do |t|
      t.named "Home"
      t.links_to root_path
      t.highlights_on :controller => :home, :action => :index
    end
    n.add_tab :html => {:class => "heading"} do |t|
      t.named "Froobles Heading"
      t.highlights_on :controller => :froobles
    end
    n.add_tab do |t|
      t.named "Froobles"
      t.links_to froobles_path, :target => "_blank", :rel => "http://foo.bar/"
      t.highlights_on :controller => :froobles, :action => :index
    end
  end
%>

In the partial, tab will be the Tab instance to be rendered.

in /app/views/shared/_my_custom_tab.html.erb:

<div class="my_custom_class">
  <%- if tab.has_link? -%>
    <%= link_to tab.name, tab.link_url %>
  <%- else -%>
    <span><%= tab.name %></span>
  <%- end -%>
</div>

On froobles/index the output will be:

<ul id="main_navigation" class="clearfix">
  <li class="home_tab"><div class="my_custom_class"><a href="/">Home</a></div></li>
  <li class="heading active"><div class="my_custom_class"><span>Froobles Heading</span></div></li>
  <li class="active"><div class="my_custom_class"><a href="/froobles">Froobles</a></div></li>
</ul>

Attributions

The concept for this is based on the tabnav component from rails_widgets: github.com/paolodona/rails-widgets

Note on Patches/Pull Requests

Fork the project.
Make your feature addition or bug fix.
Add tests for it. This is important so I don’t break it in a future version unintentionally.
Commit, do not mess with Rakefile, gemspec, version, or history. (if you want to have your own version, that is fine but bump version in a commit by itself I can ignore when I pull)
Send me a pull request. Bonus points for topic branches.