CODEWITHSUNDEEP
ruby-on-rails
NullVoxPopuli
NullVoxPopuli

Reputation: 65103

Ruby on Rails: how do I use a default placeholder thing in a select_tag?

 <%= select_tag(:services, 
                       options_from_collection_for_select(Service.all, :id, :name))%>

And it displays all the services...

But I want it to be something like:

Select a service
Service1
Service2
Service3
Service4

Upvotes: 52

Views: 42844

Answers (3)

Zabba
Zabba

Reputation: 65467

<%= select_tag(:services, 
               Service.all.collect { |c| [c.id, c.name] }.
               insert(0, "Select a Service"))%>

As answered for the question, this is for Rails 2.3. For Rails 3, see Prathan Thananart's answer.

Upvotes: 14

Prathan Thananart
Prathan Thananart

Reputation: 4077

Most of the time, you don't want to append anything to the array directly; either of these is a cleaner solution:

  • Use :prompt => "Placeholder" if you want the placeholder to show up only when the attribute is nil at the time the form is rendered. It will be selected by default, but nothing will be saved if user submits. If the attribute is already populated [possibly because a) there's a default value or b) it's an edit form], the placeholder item will be omitted from the list entirely.
  • Use :include_blank => "Placeholder" if you want to include the placeholder in the rendered list at all times.

Upvotes: 178

Will
Will

Reputation: 2152

The better way to do this would be to use the :prompt parameter. Something like:

select("post", "person_id", Person.all.collect {|p| [ p.name, p.id ] }, {:prompt => 'Select Person'})

http://api.rubyonrails.org/classes/ActionView/Helpers/FormOptionsHelper.html

Upvotes: 15

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