Bootstrap Forms is a nice Rails generator that makes working with Bootstrap (by Twitter) even easier on Rails.
Forms with Bootstrap are crowded with additional layout markup. While it's necessary, you shouldn't have to type it every time you create a form! That's why I created Bootstrap Forms.
A super special thanks to vincenzor for updating bootstrap_forms
to comply with the new methods and features in Twitter Bootstrap 2.0.
To get these new features, ensure you are using bootstrap_forms ~> 2.0.0
.
There were major changes in the release of version 0.1.0
:
- The gem name has officially changed from
bootstrap-forms
tobootstrap_forms
to match gem naming conventions. The old gem still exists on rubygems for legacy applications, however, you should update to the new gem as quickly as possible. It's faster and more stable. The old gem is no longer maintained. form_for
is no longer overridden by default. There were multiple users who were concerned that this behavior was ill advised. Instead, a new form helper,bootstrap_form_for
has been created. This is in line with other form building libraries.- The gem is now a Rails 3 Engine. As such, Bootstrap Forms will not work in < Rails 3.0. The engine is automatically mounted when including the gem in your
Gemfile
.
Add it to your Gemfile
:
gem 'bootstrap_forms'
Don't forget to run the bundle
command. The gem will add the method bootstrap_form_for
for use in your project. This is different from bootstrap_forms < 0.1.0
. In previous versions, the default form builders were overridden by default. With backlash from various community members, this is no longer the default.
Be sure to restart your Rails server after installing the gem.
With Bootstrap, you would need the following code for a form:
/ using HAML
= form_for @model do |f|
.clearfix
%label MyLabel
.input
= f.text_area :field, :opts => {...}
Using Bootstrap Forms, this is much simpler:
/ using HAML
= bootstrap_form_for @model do |f|
= f.text_area :field, :opts => {...}
The custom form builder will automatically wrap everything for you. This helps clean up your view layer significantly!
Just when you thought you were done... Bootstrap Forms includes additional form helpers that make life a lot easier! For example, the markup required for a list of checkboxes is quite cumbersome... well, it used to be.
collection_check_boxes
behaves very similarly to collection_select
:
= f.collection_check_boxes :category_ids, Category.all, :id, :name
See description above...
= f.collection_radio_buttons :primary_category_id, Category.all, :id, :name
= f.radio_buttons :published, { "Published" => true, "Unpublished" => false }
Ruby 1.8 doesn't guarantee hashes are ordered. If you care, pass in nested arrays or ActiveSupport::OrderedHash
.
Bootstrap Forms adds another helper method that generates the necessary markup for uneditable inputs:
= f.uneditable_input :name
yields:
<div class="clearfix">
<label for="organization_name">Organization Name</label>
<div class="input">
<span class="uneditable-input">The Variety Hour</span>
</div>
</div>
Bootstrap Forms also adds a default actions panel when you call f.submit
:
= f.submit
generates:
<div class="actions">
<input type="submit" value="..." class="btn primary" />
<a href="..." class="btn">Cancel</a>
</div>
You can skip the cancel button by passing the :include_cancel
button a false
value.
Pretty swell if you ask me.
You can add as many options to any form helper tag. If they are interpreted by Bootstrap Forms, they are interpreted and rendered in the output. If not, they are passed along as values to the final HTML form object.
Name | Description | Usage |
---|---|---|
help_inline | Add inline help text | = f.text_field :name, :help_inline => 'help me!' |
help_block | Add block help text (below) | = f.text_field :name, :help_block => 'help me!' |
error | Styles the field as error (red) | = f.text_field :name, :error => 'This is an error!' |
success | Styles the field as success (green) | = f.text_field :name, :success => 'This checked out OK' |
warning | Styles the field as warning (yellow) | = f.text_field :name, :warning => 'Take a look at this...' |
prepend | Adds special text to the front of the input | = f.text_field :name, :prepend => '@' |
append | Adds special text at the end of the input | = f.text_field :name, :append => '@' |
append_button |
Adds the given button to the end of the input. The value is a hash. :label is the button label :icon adds an icon before the label :class has a default value of 'btn' :type has a default value of 'button' Any other entries are passed directly to Rails's tag helper. |
= f.text_field :name, :append_button => { :label => 'Button label', :icon => 'icon-plus', :type => 'button' } |
label | Customize the field's label. Pass false to have no label. | = f.text_field :name, :label => 'Other name' |
control_group | Pass false to remove the control group and controls HTML, leaving only the label and input, wrapped in a plain div | = f.text_field :name, :control_group => false |
As of 1.0.2
, bootstrap_forms
supports I18n! More support is being added, but you can change the error header and cancel button like this:
# config/locales/en.yml
en:
bootstrap_forms:
errors:
header: 'Your %{model} is wrong!'
buttons:
cancel: 'Forget it!'
Obviously you can also change to a different lang.yml
file and use the same syntax.
Bootstrap Forms works with Ryan Bates' nested_form out of the box. Just add nested_form
to you Gemfile and bootstrap_forms
will automatically add a builder for you:
= bootstrap_nested_form_for @model do |f|
I'm pretty dam active on github. Fork and submit a pull request. Most of my pull requests are merged the same day. Make sure you:
- Squash into a single commit (unless it makes sense to have multiple commits)
- Test/Spec the changes
- Document your changes
Copyright (c) 2012 Seth Vargo
Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:
The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.
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