Validations with Simple Form - ruby-on-rails

Question

I'm attempting to use the simple_form gem in order to create forms. I'm also using twitter bootstrap for styling, so there are certain cases where simple_form is too rigid to do what I want to do (not always).
I'm submitting a form that should fail on validation, which it does. However, when it renders the page again, it doesn't display error messages near the input, and the page only half renders.
Controller Code: (note, I'm essentially using show/edit action as the same thing)
def update
#contact = current_resource
authorize! :update, #contact
respond_to do |format|
if #contact.update_attributes(params[:customer_relationship_contact])
format.html { redirect_to customer_relationship_contact_url(#contact), notice: "#{#contact.to_s} was successfully updated." }
format.json { head :no_content }
else
format.html { render :edit }
format.json { render json: #contact.errors, status: :unprocessable_entity }
end
end
end
def show
#contact = current_resource
authorize! :show, #contact
respond_to do |format|
format.html # show.html.erb
format.json { render json: #contact }
end
end
View/Form Code:
<%= simple_form_for #contact, :html => {:novalidate => true} do |f| %>
<%= f.error_notification %>
<fieldset>
<legend>Contract</legend>
<div class="controls controls-row">
<div class="span3">
<div class="controls controls-row">
<%= f.label :tax_id_number, 'Social Security No.' %>
<%= f.text_field :tax_id_number, class: 'span12', placeholder: 'Social Security No.' %>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</fieldset>
<div class="form-actions">
<%= f.button :submit, :class => 'btn-primary' %>
<%= link_to "Cancel", customer_relationship_contacts_path, :class => 'btn' %>
</div>
Model Validation:
validates :tax_id_number, format: { with: /\A[0-9]+\z/, message: "Please enter only numbers without dashes." }, allow_blank: true

Answer 1

The problem here is that you are using f.label and f.text_field in your view - simple form is built to be simple, so what you need is f.input - so in this case:
<%= f.input :tax_id_number, label: 'Social Security No.', placeholder: 'Social Security No.' %>
Here is what happens - f.input will create a surround div with an input class. Within that div is the label and the input. If there are any errors, simple form will add the class field_with_errors to the surrounding div and add a span containing the message after the input with the class error. This will not happen if you don't use f.input
All that is left is to style them with css.