navigator

:toc: macro :toclevels: 5 :figure-caption!:

= Navigator

‼️ This gem is deprecated and will be fully destroyed on 2026-01-15. There is no replacement. Please update accordingly. ‼️

Navigator is a Rails Engine that provides a domain specific language for menu navigation. Great for situations in which you need dynamic, server-side, rendering of site navigation menus complete with active page highlighting. You can also style your navigation menus with plain CSS or any CSS framework of your choice.

toc::[]

== Features

• Provides a DSL for building navigation menus.
• Supports auto-detection/highlighting of active menu items based on current path (customizable for non-path usage too).
• Supports sub-menus, nested tags, HTML attributes, etc.
• Supports the following HTML tags: ** div ** section ** header ** h1 - h6 ** nav ** ul ** li ** a ** img ** b ** em ** s ** small ** span ** strong ** sub ** sup ** form ** label ** select ** option ** input ** button
• Provides +link+, +image+, and +item+ convenience methods for succinct ways to build commonly used menu elements.

== Requirements

. link:https://www.ruby-lang.org[Ruby] . link:https://rubyonrails.org[Ruby on Rails]

== Setup

To install, run:

.... gem install navigator ....

Add the following to your Gemfile:

.... gem "navigator" ....

== Usage

The following are examples using the navigation view helper:

=== Unordered List (simple)

Code:

[source,ruby]

navigation do item "Dashboard", "/dashboard" item "News", "/posts" end

Result:

[source,html]

• Dashboard
• Posts

----

=== Unordered List (with attributes)

Code:

[source,ruby]

navigation "ul", attributes: {class: "nav"} do item "Dashboard", "/dashboard", item_attributes: {class: "active"} item "News", "/posts" end

Result:

[source,html]

• Dashboard
• Posts

----

=== Unordered List (with multiple data attributes)

Code:

[source,ruby]

navigation do item "Home", "/home", item_attributes: {data: {id: 1, type: "public"}} end

Result:

[source,html]

• Home

----

TIP: Nested data– attributes can be applied to any menu item in the same manner as Rails view helpers.

=== Nav (with links)

Code:

[source,ruby]

navigation "nav" do a "Dashboard", attributes: {href: "/dashboard"} a "News", attributes: {href: "/posts"} end

Result:

[source,html]

Dashboard Posts ----

=== Foundation Menu

Code:

[source,ruby]

navigation "nav", attributes: {class: "top-bar", "data-topbar" => nil} do ul attributes: {class: "title-area"} do li attributes: {class: "name"} do h1 do a "Demo", attributes: {href: "/home"} end end end

section attributes: {class: "top-bar-section"} do ul attributes: {class: "left"} do item "Home", "/" item "About", "/about" end

ul attributes: {class: "right"} do
  item "v1.0.0", '#'
end

ul attributes: {class: "right"} do
  item "Login", "/login", link_attributes: {class: "button tiny round"}
end

end end

Result:

[source,html]

• Demo

• Home
• About

<ul class="right">
  <li><a href="#">v1.0.0</a></li>
</ul>

<ul class="right">
  <li><a class="button tiny round" href="/login">Login</a></li>
</ul>

----

=== Bootstrap Dropdown

Code:

[source,ruby]

navigation "nav" do item "Dashboard", admin_dashboard_path li attributes: {class: "dropdown"} do a "Manage", attributes: {href: "#", class: "dropdown-toggle", "data-toggle" => "dropdown"} do b attributes: {class: "caret"} end ul attributes: {class: "dropdown-menu"} do item "Dashboard", admin_dashboard_path item "Users", admin_users_path end end end

Result:

[source,html]

• Dashboard
• Manage
  • Dashboard
  • Users

----

=== Menu Helpers

There are several convenience methods, in addition to the standard HTML tags, that can make for shorter lines of code. The following describes each:

When building links, the default is:

[source,ruby]

navigation "nav", activator: activator do a "Home", attributes: {href: home_path} end

...but can be written as:

[source,ruby]

navigation "nav", activator: activator do link "Home", home_path end

When building images, the default is:

[source,ruby]

navigation "nav", activator: activator do img attributes: {src: "https://placehold.it/50x50", alt: "Example"} end

..but can be written as:

[source,ruby]

navigation "nav", activator: activator do image "https://placehold.it/50x50", "Example" end

When building menu items, the default is:

[source,ruby]

navigation "nav", activator: activator do li do a "Home", attributes: {href: home_path} end end

...but can be written as:

[source,ruby]

navigation "nav", activator: activator do item "Home", "/dashboard" end

These are just a few, simple, examples of what can be achieved. See the specs for additional usage and customization.

=== Customization

The +navigation+ view helper can accept an optional +Navigator::TagActivator+ instance.

Code:

[source,ruby]

activator = Navigator::TagActivator.new search_value: request.env["PATH_INFO"]

navigation "nav", activator: activator do link "Home", home_path link "About", about_path end

Result:

[source,html]

Home About ----

This is the default behavior for all navigation menus and is how menu items automatically get the "active" class when the item URL (in this case "/home") matches the +request.env[“PATH_INFO"]+ to indicate current page/active tab.

+Navigator::TagActivator+ instances can be configured as follows:

• search_key = Optional. The HTML tag attribute to search for. Default: :href.
• search_value = Required. The value to match against the search_key value in order to update the value of the target_key. Default: nil.
• target_key = Optional. The HTML tag attribute key value to update when the search_value and search_key value match. Default: :class.
• target_value = Optional. The value to be applied to the target_key value. If no value exists, then the value is added. Otherwise, if a value exists then the value is appended to the existing value. Default: "active".

This customization allows for more sophisticated detection/updating of active HTML tags. For example, the example code (above) could be rewritten to use data attributes and customized styles.

Code:

[source,ruby]

activator = Navigator::TagActivator.new search_key: "data-id", search_value: "123", target_key: "data-style" target_value: "current"

navigation "nav", activator: activator do link "Home", home_path, attributes: {data: {id: "123", data-style="info"}} link "About", about_path attributes: {data: {id: "789"}} end

Result:

[source,html]

Home About ----

Lastly, the search value can be a regular expression to make things easier when dealing with complicated routes, sub- menus, etc.

Code:

[source,ruby]

profile_activator = Navigator::TagActivator.new search_value: /^profile.+/

navigation do item "Dashboard", dashboard_path li activator: profile_activator do link "Profile", '#'

ul do
  item "Addresses", profile_addresses_path
  item "Emails", profile_emails_path
end

end end

Result:

[source,html]

• Dashboard
• Profile
  • Addresses
  • Emails

----

Assuming either the Addresses or Emails menu item was clicked, the Profile menu item would be active due to the regular expression (i.e. /^profile.+/) matching one of the the profile/` paths.

== Development

To contribute, run:

[source,bash]

git clone https://github.com/bkuhlmann/navigator cd navigator bin/setup

You can also use the IRB console for direct access to all objects:

[source,bash]

bin/console

== Tests

To test, run:

[source,bash]

bin/rake

To test the dummy application, run:

[source,bash]

cd spec/dummy bin/rails server

== link:https://alchemists.io/policies/license[License]

== link:https://alchemists.io/policies/security[Security]

== link:https://alchemists.io/policies/code_of_conduct[Code of Conduct]

== link:https://alchemists.io/policies/contributions[Contributions]

== link:https://alchemists.io/policies/developer_certificate_of_origin[Developer Certificate of Origin]

== link:https://alchemists.io/projects/navigator/versions[Versions]

== link:https://alchemists.io/community[Community]

== Credits

• Built with link:https://alchemists.io/projects/gemsmith[Gemsmith].
• Engineered by link:https://alchemists.io/team/brooke_kuhlmann[Brooke Kuhlmann].