SimpleMetaTags

SimpleMetaTags attemps to make HTML metadata management keeping it simple.

Motivation

HTML metadata inside routes or controllers is a mess. There are some gems that tackle the problem but I found them too complex.

At the same time, I missed the ability to add some extra semantics like required tags as validation system or aliases to identify which data is copied over as default.

Installation

Add this line to your application's Gemfile:

gem 'simple_meta_tags'

Usage

It's used like this:

  @doc = SimpleMetaTags::Document.new

  @doc.meta('title', 'My Website title')
  @doc.meta('description', 'My Website description')


  @doc.html_tags

  # <title> Another title for my website </title>
  # <meta name="description" content="My Website description" />

Features

Validation

Set validation requirements and trigger exceptions when metadata is missing.

  @doc = SimpleMetaTags::Document.new

  @doc.require('title')
  @doc.html_tags

  # => raises SimpleMetaTags::MetaTagMissing

  @doc.meta('title', 'My Website title')

  @doc.html_tags

  # <title> Another title for my website </title>

This is specially handy for sending error information to Sentry, Rollbar or any other error tracking system.

Lazy generation

Tags are generated only when requested so can be updated many times through the request.

  @doc = SimpleMetaTags::Document.new
  @doc.meta('title', 'My Website title')
  @doc.meta('title', 'Another title for my website')

  @doc.html_tags

  # <title> Another title for my website </title>

Aliases (under development)

Use multiple times the same content in several tags with aliases. Aliases use aliased content. When aliased content changes, all aliases are affected and reflect the new content

  @doc = SimpleMetaTags::Document.new
  @doc.alias('titles', ['title', 'og:title'])
  @doc.meta('titles', 'My Website title')

  @doc.html_tags

  # <title>My Website title</title>
  # <meta property='og:title' content='My Website title' />

  @doc.meta('title', 'Another title for my website')
  @doc.html_tags

  # <title> Another title for my website </title>
  # <meta property='og:title' content='Another title for my website' />

  @doc.alias('titles').remove(['og:title'])
  @doc.html_tags

  # <title> Another title for my website </title>

Supported metadata

Open Graph

Use the prefix og: when setting Open Graph metadata.

  @doc = SimpleMetaTags::Document.new
  @doc.meta('og:title', 'My title')
  @doc.meta('og:description', 'My description')

  @doc.html_tags

  # <meta property='og:title' content='My title' />
  # <meta property='og:description' content='My description' />

All metadata starting with og: prefix will be displayed as Open Graph

Twitter

Use the prefix twitter: when setting Twitter metadata.

  @doc = SimpleMetaTags::Document.new
  @doc.meta('twitter:title', 'My title')
  @doc.meta('twitter:description', 'My description')

  @doc.html_tags

  # <meta name='twitter:title' content='My title' />
  # <meta name='twitter:description' content='My description' />

All metadata starting with twitter: prefix will be displayed as Twitter meta with name and content attributes

Related links

For simplicity we use some conventions:

• rel:canonical for canonical links
• rel:alternate:lang for language alternate links
• rel:next or rel:prev for pagination links

  @doc = SimpleMetaTags::Document.new

  @doc.meta('rel:canonical', 'http://mywebsite.com')
  @doc.meta('rel:alternate:ca', 'http://mywebsite.com/ca')

  @doc.html_tags

  # <link rel='canonical' href='http://mywebsite.com' />
  # <link rel='alternate' hreflang='ca' href='http://mywebsite.com/ca' />

HTTP-EQUIV

Supported types:

• X-UA-Compatible
• content-type
• default-style
• refresh

More types can be added. Please, create a PR if you need any.

  @doc = SimpleMetaTags::Document.new

  @doc.meta('refresh', 30)

  @doc.html_tags

  # <meta http-equiv='refresh' content='30' />

Other metadata

Any other metadata not mathing the previous sections will fall into this category and displayed as meta tag

  @doc = SimpleMetaTags::Document.new

  @doc.meta('referrer', 'unsafe-url')
  @doc.meta('robots', 'noindex,nofollow')
  @doc.meta('viewport', 'width=device-width, initial-scale=1, minimum-scale=1, maximum-scale=1')

  @doc.html_tags

  # <meta name='referrer' content='unsafe-url' />
  # <meta name='robots' content='noindex,nofollow' />
  # <meta name='viewport' content='width=device-width, initial-scale=1, minimum-scale=1, maximum-scale=1' />

Development

After checking out the repo, run bin/setup to install dependencies. Then, run rake spec to run the tests. You can also run bin/console for an interactive prompt that will allow you to experiment.

To install this gem onto your local machine, run bundle exec rake install. To release a new version, update the version number in version.rb, and then run bundle exec rake release, which will create a git tag for the version, push git commits and tags, and push the .gem file to rubygems.org.

Contributing

Bug reports and pull requests are welcome on GitHub at https://github.com/landtax/simple_meta_tags. This project is intended to be a safe, welcoming space for collaboration, and contributors are expected to adhere to the Contributor Covenant code of conduct.

License

The gem is available as open source under the terms of the MIT License.