Cleanup erb files by abstracting/moving ruby code - ruby-on-rails

Question

I was wondering if it would be possible to cleanup or reorganize my views so that I have less Ruby code. The HTML often becomes cumbersome to work with because it has so much Ruby code.
I thought about moving all the Ruby stuff into helpers and assign each function (links, tags etc.) to methods.
Example. Problem becomes much worse with a more complicated layout.
<div class="sidebar">
<div id="art_nav">
<%= link_to "Previous", art_path(#previous), :remote => true, :class => "prev" unless #previous.nil? %>
<%= link_to "Next", art_path(#next), :remote => true, :class => "next" unless #next.nil? %>
</div>
</div>
Would become:
<div class="sidebar">
<div id="art_nav">
<%= link_to_previous %>
<%= link_to_next %>
</div>
</div>
Helper:
def link_to_previous
link_to "Previous", art_path(#previous), :remote => true, :class => "prev" unless #previous.nil?
end
def link_to_next
link_to "Next", art_path(#next), :remote => true, :class => "next" unless #next.nil?
end
This seems to work with simple examples.. but I am wondering how I should organize stuff when I have to do loops or similar.
UPDATED: Loop example added
<% arts.each do |art| %>
<h3><%= art_title %></h3>
<p><%= art_description %></p>
<div id="comments_<%= art.id %>">
<%= render :partial => "/comments/index", :locals => {:resource => art} %>
</div>
</div>
<% end %>
What would you do?

Answer 1

Here is a pattern you could use in your code, to clean it up further:
def menu(*options, &block)
params = options[0]
active = (params[:active] if params) || false
first = (params[:first] if params) || false
"
<div class=\"menu\">
<div class=\"menu-left #{active ? "active" : "inactive"} #{first ? "first" : "not-first"}\">
</div>
<div class=\"menu-center\">
<div class=\"menu-content #{active ? "active" : "inactive"}\">
#{capture(&block)}
</div>
</div>
<div class=\"menu-right #{active ? "active" : "inactive"}\">
</div>
</div>
".html_safe
end
With this helper, code gets very simple:
<%= menu(:active => #active_menu == :menu1 ? true : false, :first => true) do %>
<%= link_to "Les produits et les prix", menu1_path %>
<% end %>
At the center of this pattern, there is the call
#{capture(&block)}
Sorry this example is not "generic" at all, I did a copy-and-paste from my own code. But I'm sure you get the idea.