Question

I have two models User and Category that have a HABTM association.

I would like to generate checkboxes from a collection of Category items on my view, and have them associated with the current_user.

How do I do that?

Thanks.

P.S. I know that I can do the equivalent for a dropdown menu with options_from_collection_for_select. I also know that Rails has a checkbox_tag helper. But not quite sure how to do both of them. I know I can just do it manually with an each loop or something, but am wondering if there is something native to Rails 3 that I am missing.

Answer 1

Did you check out formtastic or simple_form

They have helpers to write your forms more easily, also to handle simple associations.

E.g. in simple_form you can just write

= simple_form_for @user do
  = f.association :categories, :as => :check_boxes

In form_tastic you would write

= simple_form_for @user do
  = f.input :categories, :as => :check_boxes

Hope this helps.