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Shauna Haines

2006-Nov-18 00:17 UTC

Non-breaking space in drop-down menu

I have a select box with the options stored in a constant in my model, 
e.g.
  TRANS_CODES = [
    ["PM   Payment -- Regular",                                
"pm"],
    ["PX   Payment -- Regular, but skip periodic TA fee",      
"px"],
    ["LP   Late Payment -- made after charges were posted",    
"lp"],
...

It works fine except that the little gap between, say, PM and the 
following explanation disappears. How can I create a non-breaking space 
between the codes and their explanations? Multiple spaces and tabs all 
reduce to a single space. I tried "PM" + "&nbsp" + ...
but all my
attempts got syntax errors.

Help!

TIA,
Shauna

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Cayce Balara

2006-Nov-18 02:20 UTC

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Re: Non-breaking space in drop-down menu

Shauna Haines wrote:> I have a select box with the options stored in a constant in my model, 
> e.g.
>   TRANS_CODES = [
>     ["PM   Payment -- Regular",                                
"pm"],
>     ["PX   Payment -- Regular, but skip periodic TA fee",      
"px"],
>     ["LP   Late Payment -- made after charges were posted",    
"lp"],
> ...
> 
> It works fine except that the little gap between, say, PM and the 
> following explanation disappears. How can I create a non-breaking space 
> between the codes and their explanations? Multiple spaces and tabs all 
> reduce to a single space. I tried "PM" + "&nbsp" +
... but all my
> attempts got syntax errors.
> 
> Help!
> 
> TIA,
> Shauna
I haven''t had much luck playing with this and getting the select helper
to do what you want. However, keep in mind that you don''t have to
always
use the helpers - you can build a SELECT of your own "by hand", so to 
speak...

Say you change your TRAN_CODES so it looks like this:

   TRANS_CODES = [
     ["PM",   "Payment -- Regular", 
"pm"],
     ["PX",   "Payment -- Regular, but skip periodic TA
fee",
"px"],
     ["LP",   "Late Payment -- made after charges were
posted",
"lp"]]

Then you could do something like this and it would look the way you 
want:

    <select id="object_method" name="object[method]">
    <% TRANS_CODES.each do |tc| %>
    <option value="<%= tc[2] %>"<%= ''
selected="selected"'' if
@object.method == tc[2] %>><%= tc[0] +
''&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;'' +
tc[1] %></option>
    <% end %>
    </select>

Replace "object" with the name of your model and "method"
with the name
of the attribute this field populates. If you have a lot of these, you 
could build your own helper to do it.

One big caveat - even getting it to work, unless you use a monospace 
font for the dropdown, the spaces are not going to line up perfectly 
like (I think) you want, and it''s going to look uneven.

c.

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Shauna Haines

2006-Nov-18 03:31 UTC

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Re: Non-breaking space in drop-down menu

Thanks, Cayce.

I altered my TRANS_CODES definition as you suggested, then 
cut-and-pasted your select code into my new.rhtml view then replaced 
"object" with "payment" and "method" with
"TransCode". Here''s my result:

<li><select id="payment_TransCode"
name="payment[TransCode]">
    <% TRANS_CODES.each do |tc| %>
    <option value="<%= tc[2] %>"<%= ''
selected="selected"''
      if @payment.TransCode == tc[2] %>>
      <%= tc[0] +
''&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;'' + tc[1]
%></option>
    <% end %>
    </select></li>

But when I tried to run it, the Action Controller attempted to stick in 
.to_s in a few places (maybe this is normal?) and got the following 
compile error:

... parse error, unexpected '')'', expecting kTHEN or
'':'' or ''\n'' or '';''
if @payment.TransCode == tc[2] ).to_s); _erbout.concat ">\n"
                                ^
(the carat is pointing to the dot right before to_s).

Can you see what I did wrong?

Thanks,
Shauna

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Cayce Balara

2006-Nov-18 03:52 UTC

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Re: Non-breaking space in drop-down menu

Shauna Haines wrote:> Thanks, Cayce.
> 
> I altered my TRANS_CODES definition as you suggested, then 
> cut-and-pasted your select code into my new.rhtml view then replaced 
> "object" with "payment" and "method" with
"TransCode". Here''s my result:
> 
> <li><select id="payment_TransCode"
name="payment[TransCode]">
>     <% TRANS_CODES.each do |tc| %>
>     <option value="<%= tc[2] %>"<%= ''
selected="selected"''
>       if @payment.TransCode == tc[2] %>>
>       <%= tc[0] +
''&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;'' + tc[1]
%></option>
>     <% end %>
>     </select></li>
> 
> But when I tried to run it, the Action Controller attempted to stick in 
> .to_s in a few places (maybe this is normal?) and got the following 
> compile error:
> 
> ... parse error, unexpected '')'', expecting kTHEN or
'':'' or ''\n'' or '';''
> if @payment.TransCode == tc[2] ).to_s); _erbout.concat ">\n"
>                                 ^
> (the carat is pointing to the dot right before to_s).
> 
> Can you see what I did wrong?
> 
> Thanks,
> Shauna
I think the problem is you are breaking an inline if statement across 
two lines.

Where you have:

<option value="<%= tc[2] %>"<%= ''
selected="selected"''
  if @payment.TransCode == tc[2] %>>

You need to keep the if statement and what it applies to all together on 
one line without a break:

<%= '' selected="selected"'' if @payment.TransCode
== tc[2] %>

c.

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Shauna Haines

2006-Nov-18 04:01 UTC

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Re: Non-breaking space in drop-down menu

Okay, that''s fixed, but now Action Controller complains about 
"uninitialized constant TRANS_CODES". I looked it over again and
I''m
pretty sure my syntax is as you outlined it. Here are the first few 
lines and the last two lines:

  TRANS_CODES = [
    ["PM", "Payment -- Regular",                            
"pm"],
    ["PX", "Payment -- Regular, but skip periodic TA fee",  
"px"],

    ["XX", "Manual Entry",                                  
"xx"]
  ].freeze

Thanks again for helping,
Shauna

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Shauna Haines

2006-Nov-18 04:06 UTC

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Re: Non-breaking space in drop-down menu

Sorry, I did find my last problem:

I needed to precede TRANS_CODES with Payment::

And you are correct, in a non-monotype font the spaces aren''t exactly 
right. But I can fiddle with that. Thanks for getting me past the 
logjam!

Shauna

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Cayce Balara

2006-Nov-18 04:24 UTC

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Re: Non-breaking space in drop-down menu

Shauna Haines wrote:> Sorry, I did find my last problem:
> 
> I needed to precede TRANS_CODES with Payment::
> 
> And you are correct, in a non-monotype font the spaces aren''t
exactly
> right. But I can fiddle with that. Thanks for getting me past the 
> logjam!
> 
> Shauna
Yep, you got it - Payment::TRANS_CODES - sorry about that it didn''t 
cross my mind.

Glad to help. Bedtime.

c.

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Rails - Nov 2006 - Non-breaking space in drop-down menu

Non-breaking space in drop-down menu

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