BetterHelpers

It is a better way to organize and maintain your Rails helpers. It's provide a simple pattern to keep your helpers scoped, avoiding conflicts in the global namespace.

Installation

Add this line to your application's Gemfile:

gem 'better_helpers'

And then execute:

$ bundle

Or install it yourself as:

$ gem install better_helpers

Usage

BetterHelpers is magic free, it does nothing if you do not want. It is 100% compatible with your old helpers and will only activate under your command.

The usage is very simple, add the module BetterHelpers::Base in your helper module and create the methods inside the "DSL" better_helpers, like:

module ProfileHelper
  include BetterHelpers::Base

  better_helpers do

    def username string
      link_to(string, "/username/#{string}")
    end

  end
end

It will create the namespace profile_helper based on the underscore name of module, to use in your views is as simple as:

<%= profile_helper.username "name" %>

It also work with modules, consider the example:

module Admin
  module Users
    module ProfileHelper
      include BetterHelpers::Base

      better_helpers do

        def username string
          "admin #{string}"
        end

      end
    end
  end
end

<%= admin.users.profile_helper.username "name" %>

By default, it will create the whole hierarchy but it is possible to define the namespace, check the section Defining the namespace to understand how to proceed.

BetterHelpers will include in the namespace just the methods inside the "DSL", you could keep your "old fashion" helpers inside the module without problems.

Defining the namespace

Just pass a symbol to the "DSL" and it's done.

module HomeHelper
  include BetterHelpers::Base

  better_helpers :custom_namespace do

    def title
      "<h1>HOME</h1>".html_safe
    end

  end
end

<%= custom_namespace.title %>

module MyModule
  module MyHelper
    include BetterHelpers::Base

    better_helpers :custom do

      def helper_method
      end

    end
  end
end

<%= custom.helper_method %>

Contributing

1. Fork it
2. Create your feature branch (git checkout -b my-new-feature)
3. Commit your changes (git commit -am 'Add some feature')
4. Push to the branch (git push origin my-new-feature)
5. Create new Pull Request