# Splitting up user data entry into separate tabs **URL:** \ **Category:** Rails\ **Created:** [September 11, 2009, 9:55am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/splitting-up-user-data-entry-into-separate-tabs/175322 "2009-09-11T09:55:38Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 2\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![matt](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/m/a6a055/32.png) [@matt](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/matt)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2009, 9:55am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/splitting-up-user-data-entry-into-separate-tabs/175322/1 "2009-09-11T09:55:38Z")
Hi My rails app needs to input several items. Too many to show on a single page so my decision is to split the entry up into tabs. I do not want any other tabs in my app, just for that specific data entry. As example tab 1 would be name and address of someone tab 2 would be the phone numbers tab 3 would be the actual work address and their favorite text editors I have looked at several examples such as: [http://www.therailsway.com/2007/6/4/free-for-all-tab-helper](http://www.therailsway.com/2007/6/4/free-for-all-tab-helper) > **[Easy Tabs 1.2 – now with autochange | Kollermedia.at](https://www.kollermedia.at/2007/07/10/easy-tabs-12-now-with-autochange/)** > > A new Version of the free EasyTabs Script is available. You can now set a autochange modus to one of your menus. Accessible compact and compatible with all browsers as always. Examples Here are three basic examples: Example with one Tabmenu Example... > **[EduVoyage](https://www.eduvoyage.com/en/2008/9/26/ajax-tabs-and-rails)** > > The World is a book and those who do not travel read only one page’ Travel and educational trips enriches the minds of young students on their knowledge of places … > **[37+ Great Ajax, CSS Tab-Based Interfaces | The Jotform Blog](https://www.jotform.com/blog/37-great-ajax-css-tab-based-interfaces/)** > > Over the last few years web-developers have developed many AJAX and CSS Tab-based interfaces which became one of the most interesting techniques giving us an easy way to get information without the need to open and close multiple windows at the same... Most of these use a set of separate HTML files to contain the individual fields and that would result in saving any changes when switching tabs. CSS and lists get me close but not exactly what I want. Javascript has not been very successful so far, likely because the above examples use javascript throughout the page and not just as .js function call. Is there something simple available to get what I want or am I pretty much stuck with the solution mentioned at eduvoyage? Thanks! ---
**Author:** ![matt](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/m/a6a055/32.png) [@matt](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/matt)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2009, 7:17pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/splitting-up-user-data-entry-into-separate-tabs/175322/2 "2009-09-11T19:17:39Z")
On Sep 11, 3:41 am, Matt [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > Hi > > My rails app needs to input several items. Too many to show on a > single page so my decision is to split the entry up into tabs. > I do not want any other tabs in my app, just for that specific data > entry. > > As example tab 1 would be name and address of someone > tab 2 would be the phone numbers > tab 3 would be the actual work address and their favorite text editors I think you may be over-optimizing this; unless your actual app has a lot more data than this, tabs really aren’t helping. Furthermore, tabs are going to make it much more complicated to do things like highlight fields that didn’t pass validation. If there’s really a lot of data, you may want to consider an actual multistep entry process (saving the record along the way), as it keeps the user from getting confused and lets them pause and come back later. If you’re 100% sold on the JS tabs, take a look at the JQuery UI Tabs stuff ([Tabs Widget | jQuery UI API Documentation](http://docs.jquery.com/UI/Tabs)) - it does exactly what you were describing.