Show Overrides

In show views columns are rendered with the same format as in list views. If you want to customize the presentation of a column in the show view, you can define a specially named method in your helper file. The format is #{class_name}_#{column_name}_show_column or #{column_name}_show_column. So, for example, to customize the :username column displayed on your show view of UsersController, you would add a user_username_show_column method to your UsersHelper file (the one in app/helpers). If you want to override username columns in all models, add a username_show_column method to your ApplicationHelper file.

In v2.3 and previous versions format was only #{column_name}_show_column, so method was named username_show_column.

This override method accepts two arguments: the entire record object and the column. It is your responsibility to retrieve the interesting value from the record.

Before version 3.3, the override method accepted only a single method, the record object, so would be defined for example as “def phone_column(record)”. Since version 3.3 this would be written “def phone_column(record, column)”.

This override method is used by Show.

Example:

 class User < ActiveRecord::Base
   has_many :roles
 end

 module UsersHelper
   # joins the first three roles with a hyphen instead of the normal comma.
   # ok, so this one isn't very original.
   def user_roles_show_column(record, column)
     record.roles.first(3).collect{|role| h(role)}.join(' - ')
   end

   # creates a popup link to the associated division (belongs_to association)
   def user_division_show_column(record, column)
     link_to(h(record.division.name), :action => :show, :controller => 'divisions', :id => record.division.id)
   end
 end

If the association is defined in a STI model, prefixing with the base class is supported too, so subclasses can use a helper override prefixed with own class name, which is specific for the subclass, or share a helper override with the base class name prefix. For example:

class Admin < User
end

class Member < User
end

Admin will look for admin_roles_show_column and user_roles_show_column, and Member will look for member_roles_show_column and user_roles_show_column, so user_roles_show_column can be defined to use the same field in both models. This is more useful when clear_helpers is not called in ApplicationController, or when the method is defined in ApplicationHelper or any other shared Helper module.