Styling file upload button for simple_form_for with Bootstrap in Rails 3

Solution 1:

This is how I do it:

1. In the view add your form file field and hide it
2. Add a styled additional field just to display the file name

3. Add a button to trigger the file browse dialog

   <div class="control-group">
     <div class="attach-set">
       <%= f.input :real_file, input_html: { hidden: true }, label: 'Upload Attachment' %>
       <div class="input-append">
         <input id="file-display" class="input-large uneditable-input" type="text">
         <a id="upload-btn" class="btn"><i class="icon-upload-alt"></i> Browse</a>
       </div>
     </div> <!-- /attach-set -->
   </div> <!-- /control-group -->
   

4. In your JS (Coffee w/ jQuery shown), pass the click from the display button onto the real file input and when they select a file drop the file name in the display text field (I drop the path so that I don't see C:\FakePath....)

   $(document).ready ->
   
     # ------------------------------------------------------
     # pretty-fy the upload field
     # ------------------------------------------------------
     $realInputField = $('#real_file')
   
     # drop just the filename in the display field
     $realInputField.change ->
       $('#file-display').val $(@).val().replace(/^.*[\\\/]/, '')
   
     # trigger the real input field click to bring up the file selection dialog
     $('#upload-btn').click ->
       $realInputField.click()
   

Solution 2:

This worked great for me and only requires HTML

<label class="btn btn-primary">
  Add a file!
  <span style="display:none;">
    <%= f.file_field :image, required: true, multiple: true, name: 'picture' %>
  </span>
</label>

Solution 3:

I ran across and am using Jasny's extension to Bootstrap 3. It seems to work well so far.

Solution 4:

No JS required, just plain css

scss

.fileinput-button {
  position: relative;
  overflow: hidden;
  float: left;
  margin-right: 4px;
  width: 110px;
  height: 32px;
  input{
    opacity: 0;
    filter: alpha(opacity=0);
    transform: translate(-300px, 0) scale(4);
    direction: ltr;
    cursor: pointer;
  } 
}

html / slim

span class="btn btn-success fileinput-button"
  i.fa.fa-pencil
  span
   |  Select File
  = f.file_field :cover_ar

I recommend using compass for cross browser compatibility