link to tag current

I don't usually write about simple helpers that I make, but this one is more generally helpful and important, I think.

"link_to_tag_current is a variant of link_to_unless_current which tags the current item. Whereas link_to_unless_current generates plain text when the link would be the current page, this new helper wraps the plain text in a different tag. Without it there's no easy way to distinguish the current item from the others in CSS.

  def link_to_tag_current( name, tag, options={}, html_options={}, &block)
    content = link_to_unless_current(name, options, html_options, &block)
    current_page?(options) ? content_tag(tag, content) : content
  end

To use it, for example, here's a tabs partial:

<div class="simple-tabs">

  <ul>

    <li><%= link_to_tag_current "Foos", :span, foos_path %></li>

    <li><%= link_to_tag_current "Bars", :span, bars_path %></li>

    <li><%= link_to_tag_current "Baz", :span, bazs_path %></li>
    <li><%= link_to_tag_current "Burns", :span, burns_path %></li>

  </ul>

</div>

And an example corresponding CSS:

.simple-tabs {

  margin:0; padding:0;

  margin-top: 10px;

  width:100%;

  line-height:normal;

  font-style: italic;

}

.simple-tabs ul {

  margin:0;

  float: left;

  padding:0 1em;

  list-style: none;

  list-style-image: none;

  border: 1px solid #888;

  border-width: 0 0 1px 0;

}

.simple-tabs li {

  display:block;

  float:left;

  margin: 0 0 0 1em;

  padding: 0;

  text-align: center;

}

.simple-tabs ul li span {

  padding:0 1em;

  border: 1px solid #888;

  border-bottom-color: #fff;

}

.simple-tabs ul li a {

  padding:0 1em;

  border: 1px solid #888;

  text-decoration:none;

  color:#410000;

}

Produces something like this:

By the way, I did consider a slightly different approach, that'd give the current <li> tag a "class = 'current-item'", but that would require the helper also generate the <li> tags along with the link_to, which is a little too app-specific. In the end I decided to keep in line with the existing link_to family of helpers.