Bootstrap flash messages in Rails

14 May 2015

After avoiding Bootstrap for so long, I’m starting to see some of the advantages that it offers. For instance, I needed to style flash messages today, and turn out, I don’t have to write any CSS for it. This is all the code I needed:

/ app/views/layouts/application.haml
= render 'shared/flash'
  
/ app/views/shared/_flash.haml
- flash.each do |type, message|
  %div{ class: "alert #{bootstrap_flash_class(type)} fade in" }
    = message
    %button.close{ data: { dismiss: 'alert' } } x

Then we add a simple helper method to translate the flash classes to the bootstrap flash class names:

module ApplicationHelper
  def bootstrap_flash_class(flash_type)
    { success: 'alert-success',
      error:   'alert-danger',
      alert:   'alert-warning',
      notice:  'alert-info'
    }[flash_type.to_sym] || flash_type.to_s
  end
end

Maybe it’s not such bad idea to start new projects with Bootstrap after all.

Hi, I’m Nithin Bekal, a software craftsman with over 7 years of experience in shipping web applications. I mostly use Ruby, but lately have also been exploring Elixir. Co-founder of CrowdStudio.in, and helping organize Rubyconf India. Tweet to me at @nithinbekal.

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