Rails: Using HTML typography automatically
There’s a way you can use special characters for HTML typography in Rails without much work: Just let your views about raw text and then overwrite the html_escape (h) method:
module ApplicationHelper
…
def h(s)
super(s). \
gsub(‘(c)’ , ‘©’). \
gsub(‘(r)’ , ‘®’). \
gsub(‘(tm)’ , ‘™’). \
gsub(’ 1/2 ‘, ’ ½ ‘). \
gsub(’ 1/4 ‘, ’ ¼ ‘). \
gsub(’ 3/4 ‘, ’ ¾ ‘). \
gsub(‘… ‘ , ‘… ‘). \
gsub(’ — ‘ , ’ — ‘). \
gsub(’ - ‘ , ’ – ‘)
end
…
def h(s)
super(s). \
gsub(‘(c)’ , ‘©’). \
gsub(‘(r)’ , ‘®’). \
gsub(‘(tm)’ , ‘™’). \
gsub(’ 1/2 ‘, ’ ½ ‘). \
gsub(’ 1/4 ‘, ’ ¼ ‘). \
gsub(’ 3/4 ‘, ’ ¾ ‘). \
gsub(‘… ‘ , ‘… ‘). \
gsub(’ — ‘ , ’ — ‘). \
gsub(’ - ‘ , ’ – ‘)
end
In this case, three hyphens are replaced by ” — “, three dots by an ellipse etc.
Now just make sure that your views use it correctly and output “--” instead of “-” etc. when it is necessary.