Notes : Rails 3 Custom Scaffolding

I’ve been building an application using Rails 3.1.1 that I keep adding models too. Everytime I do I need to customize the HTML for the scaffolding to use Bootstrap-specific HTML and general adjustments that I like better. I decided it was finally time to look into providing my own scaffolding templates so I don’t have to do this every time.

Rails looks in lib/templates/erb/scaffold for scaffolding templates. If they don’t exist it uses the built-in ones provided by Rails.

You can see the built-in scaffolding ERB templates for Rails 3.1 here: https://github.com/rails/rails/tree/3-1-stable/railties/lib/rails/generators/erb/scaffold/templates

First I created a branch to develop this in:

$ git checkout -b scaffolding

I made the directory lib/templates/erb/scaffold since it doesn’t exist by default:

$ mkdir -p lib/templates/erb/scaffold

Then I created lib/templates/erb/scaffold/index.html.erb and populated it with the following:

<h1><%= class_name %></h1>

<p><%%= add_button(<%= class_name %>) %></p>

<table id="<%= plural_table_name %>" class="table table-striped table-condensed table-bordered">
  <colgroup>
<% attributes.each do |attribute| -%>
    <col />
<% end -%>
    <col class="actions" />
  </colgroup>
  <thead>
  <tr>
<% attributes.each do |attribute| -%>
      <th><%= attribute.human_name %></th>
<% end -%>
      <th>Actions</th>
  </tr>
  </thead>
  <tbody>
<%% @<%= plural_table_name %>.each do |<%= singular_table_name %>| %>
  <tr>
<% attributes.each do |attribute| -%>
    <td><%%= <%= singular_table_name %>.<%= attribute.name %> %></td>
<% end -%>
    <td><%%= edit_button(<%= singular_table_name %>) %></td>
  </tr>
<%% end %>
  </tbody>
</table>

The <%%= ... %> prevents an expression from being evaluated, resulting in <%= ... %> in the generated scaffolding.

So when I run the following:

rails generate scaffold Thing name:string description:text

It generates the following for app/views/things/index.html.erb:

<h1>Thing</h1>

<p><%= add_button(Thing) %></p>

<table id="things" class="table table-striped table-condensed table-bordered">
  <colgroup>
    <col />
    <col />
    <col class="actions" />
  </colgroup>
  <thead>
  <tr>
      <th>Name</th>
      <th>Description</th>
      <th>Actions</th>
  </tr>
  </thead>
  <tbody>
<% @things.each do |thing| %>
  <tr>
    <td><%= thing.name %></td>
    <td><%= thing.description %></td>
    <td><%= edit_button(thing) %></td>
  </tr>
<% end %>
  </tbody>
</table>

There are a number of methods/parameters available to use through your templates. From looking through several templates I saw the following:

class_name
table_name
plural_table_name
singular_table_name
attributes
attribute.human_name

I haven’t yet found where I can see a full listing of the available methods/variables.

I repeated the following steps as I tested out my changes:

# Create Scaffolding
rails generate scaffold Thing name:string description:text
rake db:migrate

# Test Changes
# ...

# Tear Down Scaffolding
rake db:rollback
rails destroy scaffold Thing

# Makes Changes and Repeat

Notes : Rails 3 Custom Scaffolding

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