Question

I am trying to set an li class of active based on what page the user is on.

I have 4 navigation elements and they all look something like this:

<% if @activeLi == "home" %>          
    <li class="active">
<% else %>
    <li>
<% end %>
    <%= link_to :controller => "home" do %>
        <span>Home</span>
    <% end %>
</li>

and then in each controller I just set @activeLi like this:

def index
    @activeLi = "about"
end

I know this is pretty basic stuff, but i’m just wondering if there is an easier way to do this?

Answer 1

Well I know one way you can simplify this and thats by getting rid of the need to use those nasty instance variables.

<li class="<%= controller_name == "home" ? 'active': '' %>">
    <%= link_to :controller => "home" do %>
        <span>Home</span>
    <% end %>
</li>