Rails Helper that identifies file type of url in link

Question

I'm looking for a helper that changes link_to behaviour if the file is a PDF, i.e. displays a tooltip.

How can I write a helper that overrides link_to only if the file is a pdf?

Answer 1

Why do you want to change the behavior of link_to? For tooltips you need to set the title attribute or you use something with javascript. So you don't need to change the default behavior.

<%= link_to "A PDF document",
            "/some_file.pdf",
            :title => "Tooltip in Most Browsers"
            #, :class => "pdf %>

If you want some fancy cool tooltip try google "jQuery tootltip" or something similar.

your could also add :class => "pdf", to be able to find all pdf links with javascript. In jQuery it could look like this:

$('a.pdf');

If you make a lot of links like this you can DRY it up with this helper:

def link_to_pdf(name,path,title)
  link_to name, path, :title => title, :class => "pdf"
end