Simple_Form and Bootstrap 3 Form Validation Notification Stopped Working - ruby-on-rails-3

Question

I'm still learning RoR and have followed various tutorials online. In that process I believe I have messed up the nice flash notifications that Bootstrap 2 showed when validating Simple_Form submissions. I have tried to update my code, but without success. Here is what I have so far...
Running:
Rails 3.2.13
Ruby 2.0.0
I just upgraded to Bootstrap 3 using this gem in my gemfile:
gem 'bootstrap-sass-rails'
In my application.html.erb I have:
<%= render 'layouts/messages' %>
In my _messages partial I have:
<% flash.each do |type, message| %>
<div class="alert <%= bootstrap_class_for(type) %> fade in">
<button class="close" data-dismiss="alert">×</button>
<%= message %>
</div>
<% end %>
In my application_helper.rb I have:
def bootstrap_class_for flash_type
case flash_type
when :success
"alert-success"
when :error
"alert-error"
when :alert
"alert-block"
when :notice
"alert-info"
else
flash_type.to_s
end
end
In my users_controller.rb I have:
def update
respond_to do |format|
if #user.update_attributes(params[:user])
format.html { redirect_to #user, notice: 'Account successfully updated.' }
format.json { head :no_content }
else
format.html { render action: "edit" }
format.json { render json: #user.errors, status: :unprocessable_entity }
end
end
end
And in my edit.html.erb view I have:
<%= simple_form_for(#user) do |f| %>
<%= f.input :firstname %>
<%= f.input :lastname %>
<%= f.input :email %>
<%= f.input :password %>
<%= f.input :password_confirmation %>
<%= f.submit "Save changes", class: "btn btn-lg btn-primary" %>
<% end %>
The validation works, but when returned to the edit view, no formatting (red for errors) or flash message appears. Only a very hard to spot message outside each field is displayed. I must be missing some link between Simple_Form and Bootstrap 3, just don't know what.
I found another post where poster suggested to add:
config.input_class = "form-control"
to my simple_form initializer, but that gave me an error (think I might not have the latest version?):
undefined method `input_class=' for SimpleForm:Module (NoMethodError)
I wish I knew what was going on but I really hope someone can help me get the formatting and flash messages back. Apologies if this is a total newbie question, but I feel a little lost and possibly regretting that I upgraded too soon to Bootstrap 3 maybe.
A thousand thanks in advance to anyone reading all this :)

Answer 1

I got the following mix of code from railscasts.com and other websites.
<% flash.each do |name, msg| %>
<div class="alert alert-<%= name == :notice ? "success" : "error" %>">
<a class="close" data-dismiss="alert">×</a>
<%= msg %>
</div>
<% end %>
Add this to the top of your controller:
respond_to :html, :json
Put this in each controller action:
def create
...
flash[:notice] = 'User was successfully created.'
respond_with(#user)
end
works with rails 3.2+ and 4.0 and twitter bootstrap rails 2, untested in tbsr 3 but will probably work fine.

Answer 2

This worked for me far much better than others as it;s shorter and includes all alert cases -> error, success, alert & notice provided by Bootstrap.
N.B: I renamed your _messages partial to _flash_messages because that is what most people use.
And for those who may be wondering where to generate the _flash_messages partial, it's pretty easy, just right-click your layouts folder in views and 'add new file'. You can call it _flash_messages as I've done, and ensure you have that first underscore (_) before 'flash...'. Tap 'Save'
Now in your _flash_messages.html.erb partial, use this
<% unless flash.blank? %>
<% flash.each do |type, message| %>
<div class="alert <%= flash_class(type.to_s) %>">
<button class="close" data-dismiss="alert">x</button>
<%= message %>
</div>
<% end %>
<% end %>
And in your application_helper.rb use this
def flash_class (type)
case type
when 'error'
"alert-error"
when 'notice'
"alert-info"
when 'alert'
"alert-block"
when 'success'
"alert-success
else
type.to_s
end
end
Then in your application.html.erb, add this as your first line in your first div
<%= render partial: 'layouts/flash_messages', flash: flash %>
Notice that we render the partial (any partial that is), without the 'starter' underscore(_), i.e before the word 'flash..'
You can check out this answer from teamtreehouse on displaying different alert cases.
Hope this helps!