GOV.UK Admin Template (DEPRECATED)
NOTE: This project is deprecated. New GOV.UK admin applications should be built using the layout component in govuk_publishing_components. Projects outside of GDS can use the GOV.UK Design System directly to build interfaces.
Styles, scripts and templates wrapped up in a gem for getting up and running with Bootstrap 3.4 based backend admin apps.
This gem provides (via a Rails engine):
- jQuery
- Bootstrap 3 standard styles and javascript — including HTML5 and respond.js shims necessary for IE <= IE8
- An admin layout with header and footer
- A lightweight javascript framework
- Admin design patterns available from
/style-guide
(when routes are mounted) - CSS helpers and SASS variables for the admin theme
- GOV.UK user friendly date formats
- Google Analytics tracking code (Universal Analytics), using the "GOV.UK apps" profile
Apps using this gem include:
- Contacts admin
- Content tagger
- Maslow
- Publisher
- Search admin
- Service manual publisher
- Short URL manager
- Specialist publisher
- Support
- Transition
Usage
Firstly, include the gem in your Gemfile, pinned to the appropriate version and run bundle
:
# Gemfile
gem 'govuk_admin_template', '~> 6.8'
At the top of application.scss
include the styles (this provides all the mixins and variables from the gem as well as from bootstrap — bootstrap mixins):
/* application.scss */
@import 'govuk_admin_template';
In application.html.erb
after any content blocks you want to include, render the base template:
# views/layouts/application.html.rb
<%= render template: 'layouts/govuk_admin_template' %>
The base template includes:
- Javascript and non-Javascript classes
- Mobile friendly viewport
- Bootstrap and jQuery javascript
- IE HTML5 and respondjs shims, and HTML classes
- header HTML
- footer HTML
You will also need to include your styles and javascripts:
# views/layouts/application.html.rb
<% content_for :head do %>
<%= stylesheet_link_tag "application", media: "all" %>
<%= javascript_include_tag 'application' %>
<% end %>
Note that jquery
and jquery_ujs
are already imported by govuk_admin_template
,
so you should remove them from your app/assets/javascripts/application.js
. This may
cause your jasmine tests to fail, so you'll need to include assets/govuk-admin-template.js
in your spec/support/jasmine-browser.json
like this:
"srcFiles": [
"govuk-admin-template-*.js",
"application-*.js"
]
It is recommended that the style guide is also made available within your app at the route /style-guide
. Add this to your config/routes.rb
file:
# config/routes.rb
if Rails.env.development?
mount GovukAdminTemplate::Engine, at: "/style-guide"
end
The gem source includes a dummy app configured to behave like an app using the gem. If you have the gem checked out it can be run from the spec/dummy
directory using rails s
.
For Javascript usage, available modules and writing modules, see the Javascript guide.
Configuration
You can configure the gem with a config block in an initializer:
# config/initializers/govuk_admin_template.rb
GovukAdminTemplate.configure do |c|
c.app_title = "My Publisher"
c.show_flash = true
c.show_signout = true
c.disable_google_analytics = false
end
Forms
Some GOV.UK admin apps use the Simple
Form library for writing form
markup. This repo contains a recommended configuration in
lib/govuk_admin_template/simple_form.rb
.
To use this configuration:
- Add
simple_form
to your Gemfile. - Add an initializer in
config/initializers/simple_form.rb
containing the following:
SimpleForm.setup do |config|
GovukAdminTemplate.setup_simple_form(config)
end
This gem also provides an i18n file in config/locales/simple_form.en.yml
.
This removes the need for this file to be present in the host project unless
specific customisations are required.
Content blocks
The gem uses nested layouts for customisation.
content_for |
Description |
---|---|
:app_title |
Name of your admin application |
:app_home_path |
Path to the home page of your application, defaults to root_path
|
:content |
Main content |
:head |
HTML to include in the <head> of your application |
:page_title |
Page title |
:navbar_items |
A set of HTML list items (<li> ) forming the primary navigation |
:navbar_right |
Text to the right of the nav bar. Logged in user, sign out link, etc |
:footer_top (optional) |
Footer content before copyright text |
:footer_version (optional) |
Text indicating the release, eg commit SHA |
:body_start (optional) |
Just after the <body> tag |
:body_end (optional) |
Just before the </body> tag |
:full_width (optional, boolean) |
Expand content to edges of screen. |
:navbar (optional) |
Custom navbar content, overrides default navbar |
Example navbar_items:
# views/layouts/application.html.rb
<% content_for :navbar_items do %>
<li>
<a href="#">navbar_item</a>
</li>
<% end %>
Date formats
The gem includes date and time formats which match the recommended styles for dates and times.
# 1 January 2013
date.to_fs(:govuk_date)
# 1:15pm, 1 January 2013
time.to_fs(:govuk_date)
# 1 Jan 2013
date.to_fs(:govuk_date_short)
# 1:15pm, 1 Jan 2013
time.to_fs(:govuk_date_short)
# 1:15pm
time.to_fs(:govuk_time)
Environment indicators
The gem includes default styles for development, integration and production. This includes a coloured environment label, a coloured strip beneath the main navigation and a coloured favicon. They are based on two variables that are set at deploy time (if they aren’t set no indicator will be shown).
The following should be set within an initializer:
# used for the classname and favicon
GovukAdminTemplate.environment_style = [integration|production|development]
# used for the human readable label
GovukAdminTemplate.environment_label = [Integration|Staging|Production|Development]
Flash messages
Turn on flash messages in the config:
# config/initializers/govuk_admin_template.rb
GovukAdminTemplate.configure do |c|
c.show_flash = true
end
Use like this:
# app/controllers/my_controller.rb
class MyController < ApplicationController
def create
if thing.save
flash[:success] = "Your thing has been created!"
else
flash[:danger] = "Sorry, it did not work."
end
redirect_to :back
end
end
We support :success
, :info
, :warning
and :danger
:
You can register your types to allow them to be used as arguments
to redirect_to
.
# app/controllers/application_controller.rb
class ApplicationController < ActionController::Base
add_flash_types :success, :info, :warning, :danger
end
# Now this works:
redirect_to :back, success: "Well done!"
redirect_to :back, danger: "This didn't work."
Development
- Clone the repository
- Run
bundle install
- Run
yarn install
The source files are in the app directory. Unlike other GOVUK frontend gems, there is no compile step. The app directory is included in the gem and hooked in as a Rails engine.
While developing it may be helpful to see how the gem will render. The dummy app at spec/dummy is configured to act like an application using the gem and can be started from that directory using rails s
. Changes will show immediately. The tests also run against this app.
The dummy app’s rake tasks have been loaded into the gem’s task list under the namespace app
for convenience – e.g. bundle exec rake app:assets:precompile
Running tests
The default rake task runs all tests:
bundle exec rake
Layout and nested layouts are tested using RSpec and Capybara:
bundle exec rake spec
Javascript is tested using Jasmine and jasmine-browser-runner. Tests can be run either in the browser or on the command line:
# browser
yarn run jasmine:browser
# command line
yarn run jasmine:ci
Testing against different Rails versions
The CI pipeline is configured to test this gem against multiple versions of Rails.
Each Rails version has a corresponding Gemfile located in the gemfiles directory. And the CI pipeline defines a matrix of Gemfiles to test against.
It's also possible to run tests against multiple Rails versions locally.
- Run
export BUNDLE_GEMFILE="gemfiles/rails_X.gemfile"
whereX
is the version to test against. This tells Bundler which Gemfile to use. - Run
bundle install
and thenbundle exec rake
as usual.
Publishing
Version bumps will automatically update RubyGems.org.