Question

I have a form for a rails model, where a specific input is saved down as text, and that text is in the drop down in the form.

At the moment, I have the following (using formtastic here):

= f.input :education_level, :as => :select, :collection => ["Some GCSEs or less", "College A levels", "Some University, no degree", "University graduate - Bachelors or equivalent", "Masters degree", "Professional Degree", "Doctorate"], :include_blank => false

Thing is. This doesn’t seem to be a great way of doing this. It’s loaded up my view with something that should probably be in the model, but that’s not very good when it comes to supporting multiple locales.

So, what’s the best way of doing this?

Answer 1

This discussion on the rails-i18n google group has an interesting solution:

#in a locale file
en: 
  education_levels: 
    gcses: Some GCSEs or less 
    collegeA: College A levels 
    some_university: Some University, no degree
    bachelors: University graduate - Bachelors or equivalent 
    masters: Masters degree
    professional: Professional Degree
    doctorate: Doctorate  

#And in a model: 
class Education < ActiveRecord::Base 
  def translated_education_level 
    I18n.t(education_level, :scope => :education_levels) 
  end 
end 

#In a helper: 
module EducationHelper 
  def education_levels 
    I18n.t(:education_levels).map { |key, value| [ value, key ] } 
  end 
end 

#And then in your view: 
<%= f.select :education_level, education_levels %>