Behold, the NavLinks:

Gem. Rails. Nav links. The nav_link_to helper works just like the standard Rails link_to helper, but adds a 'selected' class to your link (or its wrapper) if certain criteria are met. By default, if the link's destination url is the same url as the url of the current page, a default class of 'selected' is added to the link. Just replace link_to with nav_link_to in your templates.

Add this line to your application's Gemfile:

gem 'nav_links'

And then execute:

$ bundle

The nav_link_to helper is used just like the good old link_to rails helper:

<%= nav_link_to 'My Page', my_path %>

When my_path is the same as the current page url, this outputs:

<a class="selected" href="http://example.com/page">My Page</a>

For more options and full usage details, see: http://viget.com/extend/rails-selected-nav-link-helper

Same usage as link_to:

<%= nav_link_to 'http://example.com/page' do %>
  <strong>My Page</strong>
<% end %>

You can reduce duplication and wrap nav_link_to calls with the same options with a call to nav_links like this:

<ul class="nav">
  <% nav_links url_segment: 1, wrapper: 'li', selected_class:'active' do |nav| %>
    <%= nav.link_to "Projects", projects_path %>
    <%= nav.link_to "People", people_path %>
    <%= nav.link_to "About", about_path %>
  <% end %>
</ul>

Here's what you can do on a rainy day:

• Write integration tests
• Extend docs

1. Fork it
2. Create your feature branch (git checkout -b my-new-feature)
3. Commit your changes (git commit -am 'Add some feature')
4. Push to the branch (git push origin my-new-feature)
5. Create new Pull Request

This gem is mostly based on the gem nav_lynx and sponsored by Sophisticates GmbH