DismissibleHelpers

Installation

In your Gemfile add the following:

gem 'dismissible_helpers'

What you get

Usage

DismissibleHelpers includes:

DismissibleHelpers View Helper - Renders the helper only if the visitor has not dismissed it
DismissedHelpers Routes and controller - Handles the JavaScript requests to store the dismissal state
DismissedHelpers Javascript - Handles the front end interactions with the helpers

Default Behavior

By default, DismissibleHelpers will use cookies to track the state of the dismissed helpers.

Adding a dismissible helper to your page

To add a dismissible helper to the page, call render_dismissible_helper. This helper method will only display the help text if it has not been dismissed by the user.

Without a block

The string passed to the method will be processed by the I18n method t, so the content of the help message should be stored in your localization file.

<h2>Sample Page</h2>
<%= render_dismissible_helper 'sample_page.help_text' %>

With a block

The string passed to the method will be used as a key, to track whether or not the user has dismissed it. The contents of the block will appear inside the dismissible div. This is particularly useful if you want to have a more complex structure in the block.

<%= render_dismissible_helper 'how_to_buy' do %>
  <h2>How to buy stuff</h2>
  <p>To buy stuff, click look at this:</p>
  <img src="http://domain.com/img.jpg">
<% end %>

Restoring helpers

You can allow users to restore a helper if you pass restorable: true as an argument after the name of the helper.

<%= render_dismissible_helper 'how_to_buy', restorable: true do %>
  <h2>How to buy stuff</h2>
  <p>To buy stuff, click look at this:</p>
  <img src="http://domain.com/img.jpg">
<% end %>

This will allow the user to hide the helper, as well as display a restore link to display the helper again.

Including the routes

Add dismissible_helpers_routes to your config/routes.rb file.

Including the JavaScript

Add the following to your app/assets/javascripts/application.js

// Your other require file statements
//= require dismissible_helpers

$(function(){
  $('.dismissible').dismissible(); //The view helper applies a
                                   //'dismissible' class to each helper div
});

By default, the dismissed helper is removed from the page via $().remove(). This can be customized by passing a callback to the .dismissible() call. To use jQuery's .slideUp() you would use the following call'

$(function(){
  $('.dismissible').dismissible({
    dismiss: function(helper){
      helper.slideUp(); //'helper' is the jQuery-wrapped element
    }
  });
});

If you are working with restorable helpers the helper will be hidden instead and a show link will be revealed. There's a second callback when the show event was invoked as well.

$(function(){
  $('.dismissible').dismissible({
    dismiss: function(helper){
      helper.slideUp(); //'helper' is the jQuery-wrapped element
    },
    show: function(helper){
      helper.slideDown();
    }
  });
});

Using authenticated user

DismissibleHelpers will store the dismissed helpers on a model. If the helper method current_user is available, DismissibleHelpers will use this to retrieve the current user/account.

The model should have an attribute called dismissed_helpers which should be an array type. You can use ActiveRecord's serialization to achieve this:

First add this dismissed_helpers column as a text column

class AddDismissedHelpersToAccounts < ActiveRecord::Migration
  def up
    add_column :accounts, :dismissed_helpers, :text
  end

  def down
    remove_column :accounts, :dismissed_helpers
  end
end

Then add the serization call to the model

class Account < ActiveRecord::Base
  serialize :dismissed_helpers, Array
end

If you are using PostgreSQL as your database, you could use postgres_ext to add native array support to your models. You would just need the following migration to add the dismissed_helpers attribute to your model:

class AddDismissedHelpersToAccounts < ActiveRecord::Migration
  def up
    add_column :accounts, :dismissed_helpers, :string, :array => true
  end

  def down
    remove_column :accounts, :dismissed_helpers
  end
end