Lib file state_select.rb

If You you are not interested in installing a plugin just for one method(state_select) then You can put state_select.rb file in you rails lib directory. And include state_select.rb file in your controller where ever you want to use state_select method.

The url for state_select.rb is http://opensvn.csie.org/state_select/trunk/lib/state_select.rb

Feedback please....

Plugin: state_select, generate drop down selection box for states

I have wrote my first plugin(state_select). This plugin allows to create drop down list for states, same as country_select method in rails. I know this is not a big deal...

Curently it can generate state list for India, US, and Canada(default is US).

Usage:

• state_select(object, method, country='US', options = {}, html_options = {})

  Return select and option tags for the given object and method, using state_options_for_select to generate the list of option tags.

• state_options_for_select(selected = nil, country = 'US')

  Returns a string of option tags for states in a country. Supply a state name as selected to have it marked as the selected option tag.

NOTE: Only the option tags are returned, you have to wrap this call in a regular HTML select tag.

The svn repository can be found at http://opensvn.csie.org/state_select/trunk/

Install plugin by

script/plugin install http://opensvn.csie.org/state_select/trunk/

Deprecated Finders in Rails 1.1.5

These Finders are deprecated

• find_first [use find(:first)]


• find_all [use find(:all)]


• find_on_conditions [use find(:conditions)]

Ajax pagination links: Create pagination links with link_to_remote

Here is a method by mixonix to create pagination links by link_to_remote. Copy this code in your helpers/application_helper.rb

def ajax_pagination_links(paginator, options={})

options.merge!(ActionView::Helpers::PaginationHelper::DEFAULT_OPTIONS) {|key, old, new| old}
  window_pages = paginator.current.window(options[:window_size]).pages
  return if window_pages.length <= 1 unless
         options[:link_to_current_page]

first, last = paginator.first, paginator.last

returning html = '' do
    if options[:always_show_anchors] and not window_pages[0].first?
      html << link_to_remote(first.number, :update => options[:update], :url => { options[:name] => first }.update(options[:params] ))
      html << ' ... ' if window_pages[0].number - first.number > 1
      html << ' '
    end

window_pages.each do |page|
      if paginator.current == page && !options[:link_to_current_page]
        html << page.number.to_s
      else
        html << link_to_remote(page.number, :update => options[:update], :url => { options[:name] => page }.update(options[:params] ))
      end
      html << ' '
    end

if options[:always_show_anchors] && !window_pages.last.last?
      html << ' ... ' if last.number - window_pages[-1].number > 1
      html << link_to_remote(paginator.last.number, :update => options[:update], :url => { options[:name] => last }.update( options[:params]))
    end
  end
end

and use following code for creating links

        <%= ajax_pagination_links @pages, {:params => {:search_query => @params[:search_query]} } %>

Tab Problem in rails .rhtml files

The situation was: running Ruby 1.8.4, Rails 1.1.2, on WinXP & WEBrick server.

My application was working fine, but as I installed Rmagick my application crashed.

I got strange errors like:

compile error /script/../config/../app/views/layouts/application.rhtml:18: parse error, unexpected $, expecting kEND

if I refresh again the error actually changes(further refreshes flip back & forth between errors):

compile error

/script/../config/../app/views/layouts/application.rhtml:18: Invalid char `01' in expression

./script/../config/../app/views/layouts/application.rhtml:19: parse error, unexpected tCONSTANT, expecting kEND

./script/../config/../app/views/layouts/application.rhtml:20: parse error, unexpected tCONSTANT, expecting kEND

./script/../config/../app/views/layouts/application.rhtml:21: Invalid char `06' in expression

./script/../config/../app/views/layouts/application.rhtml:21: parse error, unexpected $, expecting kEND

Then my colleagues told me the root of this problem, this was because of tabs in .rhtml files. Also they told me the simple solution:

Put template = template.gsub(/\t/, " ") in your

\vendor\rails\actionpack\lib\action_view\base.rb file at line 496 as very first line of def compile_template

Restart webserver and you are done….

converting all newline characters to br tag

I was surprised as there is no function in ruby to convert all newline characters to <br>.

Here is a php nl2br equivalent method to convert all newline characters (\n) to break tag (<br>) in a string.

 def nl2br(s)
     s.gsub(/\n/, '<br>')
 end