Default value for date_helper in formtastic

Question

As basic as it sounds, I can't make the date_helper default to a date, as in:

- semantic_form_for resource do |f|
  - f.inputs do
    = f.input :issued_on, :default => Date.today
  = f.buttons

The above just renders blank columns if resource does not have a date.

Would appreciate any pointer on what I'm possibly doing wrong.

Answer 1

You can set the default on the object itself on your controller

def edit
  @resource = Resource.find(params[:id])
  @resource.issued_on ||= Date.today
end

Answer 2

You should define after_initialize in the model. If an after_initialize method is defined in your model it gets called as a callback to new, create, find and any other methods that generate instances of your model.

Ideally you'd want to define it like this:

class resource < ActiveRecord::Base

  def after_initialize
    @issued_on ||= Date.today
  end
  ...
end

Then your view would look like this:

- semantic_form_for resource do |f|
  - f.inputs do
    = f.input :issued_on
  = f.buttons

This will also guard against nil errors if you find a record that doesn't have those fields set. However, that shouldn't happen unless you create a record directly without ActiveRecord.

Answer 3

We've recently implemented a :selected option against all :select, :radio and :check_boxes inputs in Formtastic, so it'll be in the next patch release (0.9.5) or 1.0. Until then, the advice to create an after_initialize or to set the default in the controller is good advice, however I do think that sometimes the best person to decide on the default value is the designer , who may not be comfortable the controllers or models, which is why we added this as part of the Formtastic DSL.

Answer 4

you can put following in your model file

def after_initialize
    self.start ||= Date.today
    self.token ||= SecureRandom.hex(4)
    self.active ||= true
end

the above issued

@issued_on ||= Date.today

has not worked for me

Answer 5

I like the following way

after_initialize :set_issued_on

def set_issued_on
  @issued_on||=Date.today
end

Bit longer, but nice and clear