Shareable

A gem for adding social buttons to your Rails app. This gem runs with minimal configuration^* and offers many options for personalizing your social buttons. You can generate javascript buttons or static links. Render buttons for popular social media sites and your own custom code with a single method call. Buttons are available for the following social networks:

• Facebook
• Twitter
• Pinterest
• Reddit
• Linkedin
• Google Plus
• Tumblr^**
• StumbleUpon^**

The Shareable gem supports Rails 3 and 4.

_{If your app uses Rails 4 or Turbolinks, set configuration option turbolinks* to true (see Turbolinks). ** Tumblr and StumbleUpon buttons aren't displayed by default (see Configuration).}

Install

Put this line in your Gemfile:

gem 'shareable'

Then run the bundle command:

bundle

Usage

Views

For the simplest way of using this gem, add this helper method to your views:

<%= render_shareable %>

That's it! Change the look and content of each button with more options. Keep reading to find out how.

You can also render each social button separately by calling the following methods:

• facebook_button
• twitter_button
• pinterest_button
• linkedin_button
• reddit_button
• google_plus_button
• tumblr_button
• stumble_upon_button

Static Links

Javascript buttons are rendered by default. To render plain html links instead, set the configuration option static_link to boolean true in your app's 'shareable.rb' configuration file (see Configuration for more information). You can also pass static_link to the render_shareable method like so:

<%= render_shareable :static_link => true %>

Tumblr and StumbleUpon Buttons

By default, display of Tumblr and StumbleUpon buttons is disabled. Enable either button by including the name of the button you want to add (tumblr or stumble_upon) to the configuration option names (found in your local 'shareable.rb' configuration file).

Advanced Usage

Pass hash values to the render_shareable method to overwrite options locally:

<%= render_shareable :url=> 'http://github.com/hermango/', :facebook=> {:send=> 'true', :url=> 'http://demo.dev'} %>

To render only certain buttons:

<%= render_shareable :buttons=> ['twitter', 'facebook', 'tumblr'] %>

Alternatively, omit the render_shareable method and render each button individually instead. The helper method for each social link is the site name joined with an underscore to the word 'button'. E.g.:

<%= twitter_button %>
<%= reddit_button :title=> 'Alternate Title' %>

Customizing Buttons

Overriding Shareable is possible and entirely optional. Some knowledge of Rails layouts and rendering is required. Read on to learn how you can personalize your buttons.

Custom HTML Wrappers

Buttons and static links are wrapped in overwritable files called partials. The look and DOM structure of your buttons can be changed by creating your own files with matching filenames and placed in your local 'views' directory. As long as the yield method is called in the following two partials, you can make whatever changes you want:

• _parent_wrapper.html.erb goes in your app's 'app/views/shareable/partials/' directory. This partial is rendered once and encloses all of the buttons.
• _button_wrapper.html.erb goes in your app's 'app/views/shareable/partials/' directory. This partial is rendered inside _parent_wrapper.html.erb and is outputted for each button.

Change Static Links

The partial used for static links is named _link.html.erb. The important variable you want to include is called options[:url].

• _link.html.erb goes in your app's 'app/views/shareable/partials/' directory.

Change Javascript Buttons

To override the code for a javascript button, place your own template file in the 'app/views/shareable/' directory of your app and prepend that filename with an underscore and the name of the social media site. For example, to overwrite the Facebook button: Create a file called _facebook.html.erb that goes in the 'app/views/shareable/' directory.

A Note about Variables: button_name and button_caption

Each outputted button has two variables that identify the social network the button belongs to. These variables are named button_name and button_caption and are contained in the options hash. Depending on the button instance these variables are accessed within, the possible string values are:

• options[:button_name] is one of the following: "facebook", "twitter", "pinterest", "linkedin", "google_plus", "reddit", "tumblr" or "stumble_upon".
• options[:button_caption] is one of the following: "Facebook", "Twitter", "Pinterest", "Linkedin", "Google+", "Reddit", "Tumblr" or "StumbleUpon".

Both variables can be overridden when passed to the render_shareable method as hash values. E.g.:

<%= render_shareable :twitter => {:button_caption => 'Tweet this!'} %>

Styling for Buttons

For horizontally aligned buttons, try this CSS:

nav.share {display:inline-block;} /* shareable's nav tag */
nav.share div {float:left;}
nav.share iframe {border:0; margin-top:0; padding-top:0;} /* if using medium sized buttons */
#___plusone_0 {font-size: default !important;}
.fb_iframe_widget span { vertical-align: top; }
.fb_edge_widget_with_comment { vertical-align: top;}
.fb-like{display:inline-block}
* html .fb-like{display:inline}/* ie6 inline block fix*/
*+html .fb-like{display:inline}/* ie7 inline block fix*/

If you use the default configuration options and styling above, the output should appear as:

Turbolinks

Important: If your project uses Rails 4 then it's very likely you should set the turbolinks option to true. Otherwise social buttons won't appear on pages loaded via Turbolinks (Turbolinks is default in Rails 4 unless explicitly disabled).

This gem works with Turbolinks however the javascript library jQuery is required. Turbolinks support in Shareable is turned off by default. To enable Turbolinks support, first make sure your app includes jQuery then set configuration option turbolinks in your local 'shareable.rb' configuration file to boolean true. The turbolinks option can also be passed as a hash value to the render_shareable method like this:

<%= render_shareable :turbolinks => true, :facebook => {:turbolinks => false} %>

If your app doesn't use jQuery or you don't want to use the provided solution but still want to use this gem, here are some other options:

1. Use static links instead.
2. Roll your own solution: Set configuration option button_only to boolean true. This will output button tags without javascript. Then you can add your own javascript solution. See Nick Reed's tutorials to check out some approaches.
3. Disable Turbolinks. To disable Turbolinks from your app: Remove the line "//= require turbolinks" from your app's application.js. Or to disable Turbolinks for only some cases, use the data marker data-no-turbolink in links and html elements (instructions here).

Configuration

This gem comes pre-configured and ready to use. You can use the default configuration settings or customize your buttons by adding and editing your own initializer named 'shareable.rb' to your app's 'config/initializers' directory.

A generator is available for generating an editable configuration file. Run the following command, then edit the file as preferred.

rails g shareable:config

String values are expected for nearly all configuration options. Any value passed to a configuration option not enclosed in quotation marks will cause errors! Four configuration options are exceptions to this rule. The configuration option names (also called buttons when passed as a hash value to the render_shareable method) expects an array of strings (see it in the configuration file). The other three configuration options listed below expect boolean values only:

• static_link - false by default. See Static Links.
• button_only - false by default. If set to true, javascript code for buttons is omitted.
• turbolinks - false by default. When set to true, javascript buttons will work with Turbolinks. Relies on jQuery. See Turbolinks.

This project was inspired by Akira Matsuda's Kaminari gem and uses the MIT-LICENSE. Suggestions, bug reports, criticism and all contributions welcome.