check_box_tag with label_tag click action

Question

<%= f.label :category %><br/>
<%= check_box_tag 'category[]', '1', false %>
<%= label_tag 'community', 'community', class: 'category_select', value: '1' %>
<%= check_box_tag 'category[]', '2', false %>
<%= label_tag 'food', 'food', class: 'category_select', value: '2' %>
<%= check_box_tag 'category[]', '3', false %>
<%= label_tag 'music', 'music', class: 'category_select', value: '3' %><br/>
<%= check_box_tag 'category[]', '4', false %>
<%= label_tag 'education', 'education', class: 'category_select', value: '4' %>
<%= check_box_tag 'category[]', '5', false %>
<%= label_tag 'theatre', 'theatre', class: 'category_select', value: '5' %>
<%= check_box_tag 'category[]', '6', false %>
<%= label_tag 'art', 'art', class: 'category_select', value: '6' %><br/>
<%= check_box_tag 'category[]', '7', false %>
<%= label_tag 'culture', 'culture', class: 'category_select', value: '7' %>
<%= check_box_tag 'category[]', '8', false %>
<%= label_tag 'family', 'family', class: 'category_select', value: '8' %>
<%= check_box_tag 'category[]', '9', false %>
<%= label_tag 'sports', 'sports', class: 'category_select', value: '9' %><br/>

I'd like to be able to have these options show up in my controller under a category array, so I named all the options category[]. What I'd like to accomplish, is for the label_tag and check_box_tag fields to know about each other:

<%= check_box_tag 'community', 'community', false %>
<%= label_tag 'community', 'community', class: 'category_select' %>

here, if I click on the words, the box also gets checked. I tried to accomplish this with the values on the label_tag, but it doesn't seem to work. Can this be accomplished?

Answer 1

One way to do this is to add the label elements in manually (no erb), and add the checkboxes and label content as children:

<label class="category-select">
  <%= check_box_tag 'category[]', '1', false %>
  Community
</label>
...

Although that does change the structure of the html somewhat, and may have an impact on your layout/css.

Answer 2

You can also pass a block to label_tag and then next a checkbox (along with anything else you want) inside the label tag.

<%= label_tag do %>
  <%= check_box_tag 'category[]', '1', false %>
  Community
<% end %>

Relevant docs: http://api.rubyonrails.org/classes/ActionView/Helpers/FormTagHelper.html#method-i-label_tag

Answer 3

Ok, I'm pretty late to answer this. I was looking solution for same kinda problem and came up with following:

<%= label_tag "some_name", raw("#{check_box_tag('some_name')} Click label to check") %>

This would create html as follows:

<label for="some_name"><input id="some_name" name="some_name" type="checkbox" value="1"> Click label to check</label>