Question

Is there a way to make Kaminari always show pagination controls even when total page count is 1?

Answer 1

You can extend Kaminari at run-time, a process known as [monkey-patching]. Just create a file in config/initializers/kaminari_ext.rb with the following:

module Kaminari
  module Helpers
    class Paginator
      def render(&block)
        instance_eval(&block) if @options[:total_pages] >= 1
        @output_buffer
      end
    end
  end
end

You will need to restart your rails server for the changes to take effect.

If you get an error about num_pages being nil you can change num_pages within a theme, changing it to total_pages. Eventually num_pages will be deprecated in lieu of total_pages.

For example, I had to change _page.html.haml:

= raw("PAGE  #{page}  OF  #{total_pages}")