History

Helperful - A collection of Rails helpers¶

Helperful aims to be a collection of useful and reusable Rails helpers.

Plugin Installation¶

As a Gem¶

This is the preferred way to install Helperful and the best way if you want install a stable version.

$ gem install weppos --source http://gemcutter.org

You can specify the GEM dependency in your application environment.rb file:

1 Rails::Initializer.run do |config|
2   config.gem "helperful", :source => "http://gemcutter.org" 
3 end

As a Plugin¶

This is the preferred way if you want to live on the edge and install a development version.

$ script/plugin install git://github.com/weppos/helperful.git

Getting Started¶

Helper methods are grouped into different files according to their scope.

Before using an helper method you should include the helper file in your Rails application, as you would expected to do for a standard Rails helper.
All helpers belongs to the Helperful namespace to prevent conflicts with default Rails helpers. Don't forget to add the namespace when including an helper from your controller.

 1 class MyController < ApplicationController
 2 
 3   # include the title_helper
 4   helper 'helperful/title'
 5 
 6   # include the title_helper passing the qualified the module name
 7   helper Helperful::TitleHelper
 8 
 9 end

Moreover, the Helperful library provides a helpful method called helperful.
It aliases the standard Rails ActionController::Base#helper method with the exception that it automatically prepends the helperful namespace when necessary.

 1 class MyController < ApplicationController
 2 
 3   # include the title_helper
 4   helperful :title
 5 
 6   # include the title_helper passing the qualified the module name
 7   helperful Helperful::TitleHelper
 8 
 9 end

The following lines are equivalent:

1 helper    'helperful/title'
2 helper    :'helperful/title'
3 helper    Helperful::TitleHelper
4 helperful 'title'
5 helperful :title
6 helperful Helperful::TitleHelper

The helperful methods accepts any parameter accepted by the original helper method.

1 helper    'helperful/title', 'helperful/affiliations'
2 helperful :title, :affiliations

See the Rails documentation for ActionController::Base#helper method for more details about how to include an helper into a Rails application.

Once included, all helper methods are available in the View.

<html>
  <title><%= title 'This is a title' %></title>
  <body>
    <%= yield %>
  </body>
</html>

Helpers¶

Here's the list of all available helper modules.

Helperful

Wiki