Phrasing!

Phrasing is a gem for live editing phrases (copy) on websites.

Installation

Include the gem in your Gemfile

gem "phrasing"

Bundle the Gemfile

bundle install

Run the install script which will create a migration file and a config file.

rails generate phrasing

Migrate your database

rake db:migrate

Setup

The rake task will also generate phrasing_helper.rb in your app/helpers folder. Here you will need to implement the can_edit_phrases? method. Use this to hook-up your existing user authentication system to work with Phrasing.

For example:

module PhrasingHelper
  def can_edit_phrases?
    current_user.is_admin?
  end
end

Include the phrasing html initializer right below the <body> tag in your application layout file.

<%= render 'phrasing/initializer' %>

Include the required javascript files:

//= require phrasing

Include the required javascript files:

//= require jquery
//= require jquery_ujs
//= require phrasing

Include the required stylesheet file:

*= require phrasing

How to use phrasing?

You can start adding new phrases by simply adding them in your view file:

<%= phrase('my-first-phrase') %>

Aside from editing phrases (basically, Rails translations) you can also edit model attributes inline. Use the same phrase method, with the first attribute being the record in question, and the second one the attribute you wish to make editable:

<%= phrase(@post, :title) %>

In the above example, @post is the record with a title attribute.

Security

Since Phrasing can be used to update any attribute in any table (using the model_phrase method), special care must be taken into consideration from a security standpoint.

By default, Phrasing doesn't allow updating of any attribute apart from PhrasingPhrase.value. To be able to work with other attributes, you need to whitelist them.

In the config/initializers/phrasing.rb file you can whitelist your model attributes like this:

config.white_list = ["Post.title", "Post.body"]

or you can whitelist all of them (not recommended) with:

config.allow_update_on_all_models_and_attributes = true

Turbolinks

If you're using Turbolinks make sure the phrasing gem is required after it:

//= require jquery
//= require jquery_ujs
//= require turbolinks
//= require phrasing

Phrasing Appearance

The phrase view helper can take the options hash as the last parameter. Features:

url: custom_url # point Phrasing to other actions in other controllers
inverse: true # change the hovered background and underline colors to better fit darker backgrounds
class: custom_class # add custom CSS classes to your phrases to change the appearance of phrases in your application
scope: 'homepage.footer' # add scopes just like you would w/ I18.n. If the first argument is 'test', than the key would be 'homepage.footer.test'

Credits

Phrasing is maintained and sponsored by Infinum.

Phrasing leverages parts of Copycat and ZenPen.

phrasing

Runtime