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**Category:** Rails\
**Created:** [May 29, 2006, 4:57pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/hiding-html-markup/61910 "2006-05-29T16:57:50Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1
**Author:**  [@johnpetterson](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/johnpetterson)\
**Post date:** [May 29, 2006, 4:57pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/hiding-html-markup/61910/1 "2006-05-29T16:57:50Z")
Hi,
THis may be a simple question. I am trying to hide some HTML markup
language depending on a value. So for example I have the following in an
RHTML file:
\<%if session[:role]==“Administrator” %\>
**Administration**
\<%= link\_to(“Users”, :controller=\>“Users”,:action=\>“list”) %\>
\<%end\>
I want to be able to hide the Label part if the user is not an
Administrator and output it if the user is.
I dont know how to do it using Rails.
Could somebody give me an idea
Thanks
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**Author:**  [@johnpetterson](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/johnpetterson)\
**Post date:** [May 29, 2006, 5:26pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/hiding-html-markup/61910/2 "2006-05-29T17:26:49Z")
\<% else %\>
---
**Author:**  [@johnpetterson](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/johnpetterson)\
**Post date:** [May 29, 2006, 5:30pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/hiding-html-markup/61910/3 "2006-05-29T17:30:52Z")
John Philp wrote the following on 29.05.2006 16:57 :
> I want to be able to hide the Label part if the user is not an
> Administrator and output it if the user is.
It should work as is (minus the missing % after “end” problem).
One remark, though :
you should not have a “session[:role]” if role is a user property.
You should probably code an accessor like the following, made available
through application.rb and application\_helper.rb:
```
def current_role
current_user ? current_user.role : nil
end
def current_user
# Cache the User instance (probably used multiple times in a
```
request)
return @cached\_user if @cached\_user
# The find (:first …) instead of a “find(id)” avoids
exceptions when the id isn’t in DB
session[:user\_id] ? (@cached\_user = User.find(:first,
:conditions
=\> [‘id = ?’, session[:user\_id]])) : nil
end
@cached\_user avoids multiple calls to the DB. You end up 1/ restoring
the session, 2/ doing a single find for your user on each request
instead of only 1/ restoring the session.
Roughly the same amount of data is transferred but this is a little bit
slower than a single request. So why bother? You get a lot of robustness
for a very small perf penalty, see below.
Your login method should only put the logged-in user id in session.
Otherwise you’ll get multiple problems:
- when restoring sessions you’ll need various models pre-loaded when
restoring the user (depending on the objects stored in the session
through the user instance which can cache itself other objects), in
short all associated models must be loaded by a
model :, …, :
line in application.rb to avoid such problems.
- when changing the user model, you can’t restore the sessions anymore
(objects dumped with old models can’t be restored with the new one),
- changes applied to the logged in user or associated cached objects
aren’t visible if done by using other instances of the same objects (in
other sessions but also in the same session…).
In short, you’ll avoid a lot of trouble by neither storing more than the
smallest bit of information you need in session: the user id. In
practice, the perf penalty isn’t even noticeable.
Lionel.
---
**Author:**  [@johnpetterson](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/johnpetterson)\
**Post date:** [May 29, 2006, 9:12pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/hiding-html-markup/61910/4 "2006-05-29T21:12:41Z")
Looks like your using the User Engine
If that’s true they have a helper method that’s most efficient:
\<%=link\_if\_authorized(‘Edit’,
{:controller=\>‘listing’,:action=\>‘edit’, :id =\> @listing } ) %\>
Will only show the link if the current users is allowed to