Links acting like buttons have a few disadvantages.
First, screen readers will announce them as "links". Screen reader users
usually associate links with "things that get you somewhere" and buttons
with "things that perform an action". So when something like "Delete,
link" is announced, they'll probably think this is a link which will
take them to another page where they can delete a record.
Furthermore, the URL of the link for the "destroy" action might be the
same as the URL for the "show" action (only one is accessed with a
DELETE request and the other one with a GET request). That means screen
readers could announce the link like "Delete, visited link", which is
very confusing.
They also won't work when opening links in a new tab, since opening
links in a new tab always results in a GET request to the URL the link
points to.
Finally, submit buttons work without JavaScript enabled, so they'll work
even if the JavaScript in the page hasn't loaded (for whatever reason).
For all these reasons (and probably many more), using a button to send
forms is IMHO superior to using links.
There's one disadvantage, though. Using `button_to` we create a <form>
tag, which means we'll generate invalid HTML if the table is inside
another form. If we run into this issue, we need to use `button_tag`
with a `form` attribute and then generate a form somewhere else inside
the HTML (with `content_for`).
Note we're using `button_to` with a block so it generates a <button>
tag. Using it in a different way the text would result in an <input />
tag, and input elements can't have pseudocontent added via CSS.
The following code could be a starting point to use the `button_tag`
with a `form` attribute. One advantage of this approach is screen
readers wouldn't announce "leaving form" while navigating through these
buttons. However, it doesn't work in Internet Explorer.
```
ERB:
<% content_for(:hidden_content, form_tag(path, form_options) {}) %>
<%= button_tag text, button_options %>
Ruby:
def form_id
path.gsub("/", "_")
end
def form_options
{ id: form_id, method: options[:method] }
end
def button_options
html_options.except(:method).merge(form: form_id)
end
Layout:
<%= content_for :hidden_content %> # Right before the `</body>`
```
CONSUL
Citizen Participation and Open Government Application
This is the opensource code repository of the eParticipation website CONSUL, originally developed for the Madrid City government eParticipation website
Documentation
Check the ongoing documentation at https://docs.consulproject.org to learn more about how to start your own CONSUL fork, install it, customize it and learn to use it from an administrator/maintainer perspective.
CONSUL Project main website
You can access the main website of the project at http://consulproject.org where you can find documentation about the use of the platform, videos, and links to the community space.
Configuration for development and test environments
NOTE: For more detailed instructions check the docs
Prerequisites: install git, Ruby 2.7.4, CMake, pkg-config, shared-mime-info, Node.js and PostgreSQL (>=9.5).
git clone https://github.com/consul/consul.git
cd consul
bundle install
cp config/database.yml.example config/database.yml
cp config/secrets.yml.example config/secrets.yml
bin/rake db:create
bin/rake db:migrate
bin/rake db:dev_seed
RAILS_ENV=test rake db:setup
Run the app locally:
bin/rails s
Run the tests with:
bin/rspec
You can use the default admin user from the seeds file:
user: admin@consul.dev pass: 12345678
But for some actions like voting, you will need a verified user, the seeds file also includes one:
user: verified@consul.dev pass: 12345678
Configuration for production environments
See installer
Current state
Development started on 2015 July 15th. Code was deployed to production on 2015 september 7th to decide.madrid.es. Since then new features are added often. You can take a look at the current features at the project's website and future features at the Roadmap and open issues list.
License
Code published under AFFERO GPL v3 (see LICENSE-AGPLv3.txt)
Contributions
See CONTRIBUTING.md
