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**Category:** Rails\
**Created:** [October 29, 2006, 4:35pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/mark-html-elements-with-a-css-class/74056 "2006-10-29T16:35:10Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1
**Author:**  [@Gesen](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Gesen)\
**Post date:** [October 29, 2006, 4:35pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/mark-html-elements-with-a-css-class/74056/1 "2006-10-29T16:35:10Z")
I’ve got a tab menu with links to different controllers. Depending on
which controllers is the current, I would like the current controller’s
tab to have a css class, e.g. class=“current”. I use the same layout
file for all controllers.
I would like to do kind of the same thing to another menu but this time
depending on which ID is the current. It’s a list of posts in the
database, and depending on which post is the current, the current post
shall have a css class in the list of posts.
Does anyone have a simple solutions for this?
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**Author:**  [@Gesen](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Gesen)\
**Post date:** [October 29, 2006, 4:55pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/mark-html-elements-with-a-css-class/74056/2 "2006-10-29T16:55:13Z")
hi
in body tag, put a class
then in your menu
- articles
- controller
...
to format this, and highlight the current chosen controller, it would be
in
css file
.articles li .articles { highlighted style }
same for the highlighted posts
On 10/29/06, Gesen [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote:
> shall have a css class in the list of posts.
>
> Does anyone have a simple solutions for this?
>
> >
–
Heri R.
[http://sprinj.com](http://sprinj.com)
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**Author:**  [@Gesen](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Gesen)\
**Post date:** [October 29, 2006, 7:05pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/mark-html-elements-with-a-css-class/74056/3 "2006-10-29T19:05:29Z")
On 10/29/06, Heri R\> [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote:
> to format this, and highlight the current chosen controller, it would be
> in css file
>
> .articles li .articles { highlighted style }
>
> same for the highlighted posts
Nice solution, but not very flexible. For such things I developed a
plugin
(site\_map) which is hosted on rubyforge. You can install it with:
./script/plugin install
svn://rubyforge.org/var/svn/site-map/trunk/site\_map
The basics are:
1. in routes.rb define your site map:
SiteMap.draw do |map|
map.area 'public do
map.section ‘about\_us’, :controller =\> ‘frontend’, :action =\>
‘about\_us’
map.section ‘signup’, :controller =\> ‘account’
map.location :controller =\> ‘frontend’ # not bound to any
particular
section
end
map.area ‘admin’ do
map.section ‘users’, :controller =\> ‘/admin/users’
map.section ‘posts’ do
map.location :controller =\> ‘/admin/posts’
map.location :controller =\> ‘/admin/comments’
end
end
end
1. Then in the views there is a current\_location helper which returns an
object that describes current location. It has all the location
attributes
(area name, section name, etc) initialized based on current request
params
(including controller and action names)
You can use any attributes you want (zone / area / section / etc), there
is
no predefined ones (except you can’t use “location” attribute, because
it is
reserved keyword).
In your views you can use some helpers like
\<%= section\_link ‘users’, ‘User management’, :controller =\>
‘/admin/users’
%\>
which is defined in helpers as:
def section\_link(section\_name, title, url\_options)
if current\_location.section == section\_name
# selected section
link\_to title, url\_options, :class =\> ‘selected’
else
# normal section
link\_to title, url\_options
end
end
This saves me from adding new stylesheets if I add new subdivisions to
my
web applications. It also gives greater flexibility in mapping
controllers
AND actions to different “locations”. Also, you can render selected e.g.
“section” with simple text (not a link). With css solution you can’t do
that.
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**Author:**  [@Gesen](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Gesen)\
**Post date:** [November 7, 2006, 10:53am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/mark-html-elements-with-a-css-class/74056/4 "2006-11-07T10:53:21Z")
I was thinking a slightly more easier solution. I solved the problem
with the following solution.
\<% for page in @pages %\> class="current"\<% end %\>\>\<%= link\_to page.name, :controller =\> "pages", :action =\> "show", :id =\> page %\> \<% end %\>