Rails - Apr 2009 - How do I properly create a menu with optgroup labels?

Hi,

I''m trying to produce a select menu with "optgroup" tags.
The HTML output should look like this:

 <optgroup label="Europe">
    <option value="Denmark">Denmark</option>
    <option value="Germany">Germany</option>
    <option value="France">France</option>
  </optgroup>
  <optgroup label="North America">
    <option value="US">United States</option>
    <option value="Canada">Canada</option>
  </optgroup>

In rails I''m typing this:

<%= f.select :member_1,
grouped_options_for_select ([[''North
America'',[[''United
States'',''US''],''Canada'']],
[''Europe'',[''Denmark'',''Germany'',''France'']]])
%>

The result is that rails is adding the generated HTML to the select
menu, that is to say that in the generated menu, instead of seeing:

Europe
 Denmark
 France

etc ..

I see
<optgroup label="Europe"><option
value="Denmark">Denmark</option>

etc..

(See attachment)

Here is the HTML produced by Rails:
<select id="applicant_member_1"
name="applicant[member_1]">
<option value="&lt;optgroup label=&quot;North
America&quot;&gt;
&lt;option value=&quot;US&quot;&gt;United
States&lt;/option&gt;">
&lt;optgroup label=&quot;North America&quot;&gt;&lt;
option value=&quot;US&quot;&gt;United States&lt;/option&gt;
</option>
....

Can anyone help me to sort this out?
What am I doing wrong?
How do I properly create a menu with optgroup labels?

Thanks in advance for your help

Attachments:
http://www.ruby-forum.com/attachment/3624/menu.jpg

-- 
Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/.

On Apr 27, 10:52 am, Jim Burgess
<rails-mailing-l...-ARtvInVfO7ksV2N9l4h3zg@public.gmane.org>
wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I''m trying to produce a select menu with "optgroup"
tags.
> The HTML output should look like this:
>
>  <optgroup label="Europe">
>     <option value="Denmark">Denmark</option>
>     <option value="Germany">Germany</option>
>     <option value="France">France</option>
>   </optgroup>
>   <optgroup label="North America">
>     <option value="US">United States</option>
>     <option value="Canada">Canada</option>
>   </optgroup>
>
> In rails I''m typing this:
>
> <%= f.select :member_1,
> grouped_options_for_select ([[''North
America'',[[''United
> States'',''US''],''Canada'']],
>
[''Europe'',[''Denmark'',''Germany'',''France'']]])
%>
select is not expecting a chunk of html, it''s expecting something like
[[''option label'', option_value], ...]

you might want to use either select_tag (which is expecting a blob of
html)

Fred

>
> The result is that rails is adding the generated HTML to the select
> menu, that is to say that in the generated menu, instead of seeing:
>
> Europe
>  Denmark
>  France
>
> etc ..
>
> I see
> <optgroup label="Europe"><option
value="Denmark">Denmark</option>
>
> etc..
>
> (See attachment)
>
> Here is the HTML produced by Rails:
> <select id="applicant_member_1"
name="applicant[member_1]">
> <option value="&lt;optgroup label=&quot;North
America&quot;&gt;
> &lt;option value=&quot;US&quot;&gt;United
States&lt;/option&gt;">
> &lt;optgroup label=&quot;North America&quot;&gt;&lt;
> option value=&quot;US&quot;&gt;United
States&lt;/option&gt;
> </option>
> ....
>
> Can anyone help me to sort this out?
> What am I doing wrong?
> How do I properly create a menu with optgroup labels?
>
> Thanks in advance for your help
>
> Attachments:http://www.ruby-forum.com/attachment/3624/menu.jpg
>
> --
> Posted viahttp://www.ruby-forum.com/.

Hi Fred,
Well that worked :-)
I changed
<%= f.select :member_1
into
<%= select_tag :member_1
and got 100% the desired result.

Only problem is, is that I am using
<% form_for :applicant, :url=> {:action => "index"} do |f|
%>
to create my form and removing the reference to the applicant object 
("f"), means that the value for "member_1" does not get
passed when I
submit the form.

Is there any way around this?
sort of "f.select_tag" (which obviously doesn''t work)


-- 
Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/.

On Apr 27, 12:17 pm, Jim Burgess
<rails-mailing-l...-ARtvInVfO7ksV2N9l4h3zg@public.gmane.org>
wrote:
> Hi Fred,
> Well that worked :-)
> I changed
> <%= f.select :member_1
> into
> <%= select_tag :member_1
> and got 100% the desired result.
>
> Only problem is, is that I am using
> <% form_for :applicant, :url=> {:action => "index"} do
|f| %>
> to create my form and removing the reference to the applicant object
> ("f"), means that the value for "member_1" does not get
passed when I
> submit the form.
>
> Is there any way around this?
You need to specify the right name for select_tag. Easiest way to do
that is to switch back to f.select, look at the html and use the name
it generated for the select tag.

Fred

Thanks for that.
I have now changed the code thus:

<%= select_tag "applicant[member_1]", 
grouped_options_for_select(@grouped_options) %>

and now I can pick up :member_1 in the params.
Hooray.

One last thing though, when I submit the form the select menu always 
springs back to its initial value (in this case "United States"), 
regardless of what was previously selected.

Is there any way to alter this? I tried using :selected => "Canada"
for
example, but that didn''t work.

Thanks very much for your help so far.
-- 
Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/.

On Apr 27, 2:28 pm, Jim Burgess
<rails-mailing-l...-ARtvInVfO7ksV2N9l4h3zg@public.gmane.org>
wrote:
> Thanks for that.
> I have now changed the code thus:
>
> <%= select_tag "applicant[member_1]",
> grouped_options_for_select(@grouped_options) %>
>
> and now I can pick up :member_1 in the params.
> Hooray.
>
> One last thing though, when I submit the form the select menu always
> springs back to its initial value (in this case "United States"),
> regardless of what was previously selected.
>
you need to tell grouped_options_for_select what the value of the
selected option is

Fred

> you need to tell grouped_options_for_select what the value of the
> selected option is
> 
> Fred
Wonderful.
I checked the documenttation for grouped_options_for_select again, and 
you are completely right. It''s done with the use of selected_key.

The code now reads:
<%= select_tag "applicant[member_3]", 
grouped_options_for_select(@grouped_options, selected_key = "Canada")
%>

And works perfectly.

Thanks very much for your help.

P.S. Hopefully I can now give all of the options an ID and pass this 
back in from the controller so it would read "selected_key = @sel_key"


-- 
Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/.

In case this helps anyone else, I now have:

form_controller.rb:

def index
@members_group [
["Molecular Neuroscience", [["Prof. Dr. Denise
Manahan-Vaughan", "1"],
["Prof. Dr. Lutz Pott", "2"]]],
["Developmental Neuroscience", [["Prof. Dr. Petra Wahle",
"3"], ["Prof.
Dr. Andreas Faissner", "4"], ["Dr. Alexander von
Holst", "5"]]],
["Systems Neuroscience", [["Prof. Dr. Dr. Hanns Hatt",
"6"], ["Prof. Dr.
Klemens Stoertkuhl", "7"]]],
["Cognitive Neuroscience", [["Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Onur
Guentuerkuen",
"8"], ["Prof. Dr. Irene Daum", "9"], ["Prof.
Dr. Oliver T. Wolf",
"10"]]],
["Clinical Neuroscience", [["Prof. Dr. Martin Tegenthoff",
"11"]]],
["Computational  Neuroscience", [["Prof. Dr. Gregor
Schoener", "12"],
["Jun. Prof. Dr. Christian Igel", "13"], ["Dr. Rolf
Wuertz", "14"]]],
]

@applicant = Applicant.new(params[:applicant])
if(request.post? and @applicant.save)
  @name = "public/pdfs/#{@applicant.last_name}.pdf"
  redirect_to :action => "success"
else
  @member_1 = @applicant.member_1
  render :action=> "index"
end
end

In form.html.erb:
...
<%= select_tag "applicant[member_1]", 
grouped_options_for_select(@members_group, selected_key = @member_1, 
prompt = " ") %>

This works perfectly.

-- 
Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/.

Harpal Gujral wrote:
> This post was really helpful in understanding the problem but how do we 
> pass in the selected key if we''re dealing with multiple nested 
> attributes:
> 
> <select class="item"
id="invoice_invoice_line_items_attributes_0_item"
> name="invoice[invoice_line_items_attributes][0][item]" ...>
> 
> <select class="item"
id="invoice_invoice_line_items_attributes_1_item"
> name="invoice[invoice_line_items_attributes][1][item]" ...>
> 
> etc.
> 
> I need help filling in the blanks for this piece of code:
> grouped_options_for_select (@items, 
> @invoice.invoice_line_items[???].item, "Please select...")
> 
> How do I pick up the current index value so that I can set the right 
> selected key?
I had the same problem with nested attributes. You can use 
builder.object
to access the current object for this form. I ended up using something
like this to get it to work:

<% f.fields_for :invoice_line_items do |builder| %>
<%= select_tag builder.object_name+''[item]'',
      grouped_options_for_select(
        @items,
        builder.object.item,
        "Please select..."
      )
%>

I''m sure there is a more elegant solution involving a monkey-patch of
ActionView::Helpers::FormBuilder but I haven''t gotten that far yet.
-- 
Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/.

-- 
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
"Ruby on Rails: Talk" group.
To post to this group, send email to
rubyonrails-talk-/JYPxA39Uh5TLH3MbocFF+G/Ez6ZCGd0@public.gmane.org
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to
rubyonrails-talk+unsubscribe-/JYPxA39Uh5TLH3MbocFF+G/Ez6ZCGd0@public.gmane.org
For more options, visit this group at
http://groups.google.com/group/rubyonrails-talk?hl=en.