Question

I’m looking for the DRYest, most conventional, and shortest way to write this helper.

I have something like this at the top of each index view file:

<%= page_header "Blog", "My thoughts on things" %>

And the corresponding helper:

def page_header(title=nil, subtitle=nil)
  header = ''
  header += content_tag(:h1, title) if title.present?
  header += content_tag(:h3, subtitle) if subtitle.present?
  return header.html_safe
end

It works, but it’s ugly and I know there is a better way, I just can’t find it.

Answer 1

I’d go for a partial.

app/views/shared/_page_header.html.erb:

<% if title.present? %>
  <h1><%= title %></h1>
<% end %>

<% if subtitle.present? %>
  <h3><%= subtitle %></h3>
<% end %>

And the helper would be:

def page_header(title = nil, subtitle = nil)
  render "shared/page_header", :title => title, :subtitle => subtitle
end

You can also look at cells.