User's Personal CSS Stylesheet in Ruby on Rails - css

Question

I have looked around but I can't find a lead on what I need to do to make the following possible:
This question assumes I have all model controllers working properly and the named CSS attributes are defined in the default stylesheet.
I am wanting users to be able to select a few CSS attributes to personalize their own theme when they login. The basics attributes would be the "body" and "page-wrapper" colour. (foreground)
I am wanting them to be able to select these attributes (from a form?) in the user's edit page. (which is already created)
Any ideas as to how I could make this work or a good lead in the right direction?
Thanks for your help.

Answer 1

I think the best approach is via javascript, generating an style tag on the head with the desired styles. Jquery gives a simple way to do that, and you can store the styles on a column in your model.
Something like this:
class User
attr_accesible :styles
view.erb
<script>
// Assume the #styles attr has something like "body { background-color: #567;}"
$('head').append($('<style>').html('<%= #user.styles %>'))
</script>
#styles will be another column in your model, so you should add it with a migration
rails g migration addstylestousers styles:string
in your form.erb
<%= f.label :styles %>
<%= f.text_field :styles %>
I think it's simple enough for the user to put the css style here as long as you give him enough tips like "add body { background-color: red } in this field to make you background red!".
About serialization, consider this.
If you want to nest the styles, then the script will be
//Lets say that the user stored on #bgcolor and #fgcolor only css color codes, like '#222' or 'blue'
var bgc = '<%= #user.style.bgcolor %>'
var fgc = '<%= #user.style.fgcolor %>'
var style = 'body { background-color: ' + bgc + '; foreground-color: ' + fgc + ' }'
$('head').append($('<style>').html(style))
Remember that relationship should be User has_one :style on this case. However, nesting it's getting yourself into more problem, I don't think it's worth it at all.