Tabletastic¶ ↑

Inspired by the projects table_builder and formtastic, I realized how often I created tables for my active record collections. This is my attempt to simplify this (the default scaffold):

<table>
  <tr>
    <th>Title</th>
    <th>Body</th>
    <th>Author Id</th>
  </tr>
  <% for post in @posts %>
    <tr>
      <td><%=h post.title %></td>
      <td><%=h post.body %></td>
      <td><%=h post.author_id %></td>
      <td><%= link_to "Show", post %></td>
      <td><%= link_to "Edit", edit_post_path(post) %></td>
      <td><%= link_to "Destroy", post, :confirm => 'Are you sure?', :method => :delete %></td>
      </tr>
  <% end %>
</table>

into this:

<% table_for(@posts) do |t| %>
  <%= t.data :actions => :all %>
<% end %>

and still output the same effective results, but with all the semantic goodness that tabular data should have, i.e. a thead and tbody element.

Installation¶ ↑

In your Rails project, as a gem:

config.gem "tabletastic", :source => "http://gemcutter.org"

Or, for if you’re behind the times, as a plugin:

script/plugin install git://github.com/jgdavey/tabletastic.git

Usage¶ ↑

By default, you can just use the table_for method to build up your table. Assuming you have a Post model with title and body, that belongs to an Author model with a name, you can just use the helper. It will try to detect all content fields and belongs to associations.

In your view, simply calling:

<% table_for(@posts) do |t| %>
  <%= t.data %>
<% end %>

will produce html like this:

<table id="posts">
  <thead>
    <tr>
      <th>Title</th>
      <th>Body</th>
      <th>Author</th>
    </tr>
  </thead>
  <tbody>
    <tr class="post odd" id="post_1">
      <td>Something</td>
      <td>Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet consequat. Duis aute irure dolor.</td>
      <td>Jim Beam</td>
    </tr>
    <tr class="post even" id="post_2">
      <td>Second Post</td>
      <td>This is the second post</td>
      <td>Jack Daniels</td>
    </tr>
    <tr class="post odd" id="post_3">
      <td>Something else</td>
      <td>Blah!</td>
      <td></td>
    </tr>
  </tbody>
</table>

To limit the fields, change the order, or to include fields that are excluded by default (such as created_at), You can list methods to call on each resource:

<% table_for(@posts) do |t| %>
  <%= t.data :author, :title, :created_at %>
<% end %>

will produce html like:

<table id="posts">
  <thead>
    <tr>
      <th>Author</th>
      <th>Title</th>
      <th>Created at</th>
    </tr>
  </thead>
  <tbody>
    <tr id="post_1" class="post odd">
      <td>Jim Beam</td>
      <td>Something</td>
      <td>2009-11-15 02:42:48 UTC</td>
    </tr>
    <tr id="post_2" class="post even">
      <td>Jack Daniels</td>
      <td>Second Post</td>
      <td>2009-11-16 00:11:00 UTC</td>
    </tr>
    <tr id="post_3" class="post odd">
      <td></td>
      <td>Something else</td>
      <td>2009-11-16 00:11:30 UTC</td>
    </tr>
  </tbody>
</table>

For even greater flexibility, you can pass data a block:

<% table_for(@posts) do |t| %>
  <% t.data :actions => :all do %>
    <%= t.cell(:title, :cell_html => {:class => "titlestring"}) %>
    <%= t.cell(:body, :heading => "Content") {|p| truncate(p.body, 30)} %>
    <%= t.cell(:author) {|p| p.author && link_to(p.author.name, p.author) } %>
  <% end -%>
<% end %>

will product html like:

<table id="posts">
  <thead>
    <tr>
      <th>Title</th>
      <th>Content</th>
      <th>Author</th>
      <th></th>
      <th></th>
      <th></th>
    </tr>
  </thead>
  <tbody>
    <tr class="post odd" id="post_1">
      <td class="titlestring">Something</td>
      <td>Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet,...</td>
      <td>
        <a href="/authors/1">Jim Bean</a>
      </td>
      <td class="actions show_link">
        <a href="/posts/1">Show</a>
      </td>
      <td class="actions edit_link">
        <a href="/posts/1/edit">Edit</a>
      </td>
      <td class="actions destroy_link">
        <a href="/posts/1/edit">Destroy</a> <!-- inline javascript omitted -->
      </td>
    </tr>
    <tr class="post even" id="post_2">
      <td class="titlestring">Second Post</td>
      <td>This is the second post</td>
      <td>
        <a href="/authors/2">Jack Daniels</a>
      </td>
      <td class="actions show_link">
        <a href="/posts/2">Show</a>
      </td>
      <td class="actions edit_link">
        <a href="/posts/2/edit">Edit</a>
      </td>
      <td class="actions destroy_link">
        <a href="/posts/2/edit">Destroy</a> <!-- inline javascript omitted -->
      </td>
    </tr>
    <tr class="post odd" id="post_3">
      <td class="titlestring">Something else</td>
      <td>Blah!</td>
      <td></td>
      <td class="actions show_link">
        <a href="/posts/3">Show</a>
      </td>
      <td class="actions edit_link">
        <a href="/posts/3/edit">Edit</a>
      </td>
      <td class="actions destroy_link">
        <a href="/posts/3/edit">Destroy</a> <!-- inline javascript omitted -->
      </td>
    </tr>
  </tbody>
</table>

If it still isn’t flexible enough for your needs, it might be time to return to static html/erb.

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, 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.

Copyright¶ ↑

Copyright © 2009 Joshua Davey. See LICENSE for details.