title: bootstrap-sass tables - how to generate a single row that spans whole table width to display message when table empty (along with column headings)
body: <p>I have a table I have generated and converted to look like bootstraps styles using the supported htlm and css elements.</p>
  
  <p>I have included in my code (Rails 3.2.3) the unless command to display the table rows when data is present, but to display a message in what I hope to be a single row (spanning all columns) when no data is present.</p>
  
  <p>Currently it displays but not as a single row.</p>
  
  <p>I have tried using span, and colspan in the table but cannot get it to look 'clean'</p>
  
  <p>Here is the empty table</p>
  
  <p><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/W6Bpj.png" alt="Figure 1: table as currently displaying (empty)"></p>
  
  <p>Here is the table with data</p>
  
  <p><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/sL9EW.png" alt="Figure 2: table with 1 record"></p>
  
  <p>Here is the code used to generate the table.</p>
  
  <pre><code>&lt;div class="page-header"&gt;
    &lt;div class="span10"&gt;
      &lt;h1&gt;Listing people&lt;/h1&gt;
      &lt;div class="contextual"&gt;
        &lt;%= link_to(new_person_path, class: "btn btn-success") do %&gt;
          New Person &lt;i class="icon-plus icon-white"&gt;&lt;/i&gt;
        &lt;% end %&gt;
      &lt;/div&gt;
    &lt;/div&gt;
  
  &lt;table class="table table-striped table-bordered table-condensed"&gt;
  &lt;thead&gt;
    &lt;tr&gt;
      &lt;th&gt;&lt;/th&gt;
      &lt;th colspan="1"&gt;Full Name&lt;/th&gt;
      &lt;th colspan="1"&gt;DOB&lt;/th&gt;
      &lt;th colspan="1"&gt;Sex&lt;/th&gt;
      &lt;th colspan="1"&gt;Address&lt;/th&gt;
      &lt;th&gt;Actions&lt;/th&gt;
    &lt;/tr&gt;
  &lt;/thead&gt;
  &lt;tbody
    &lt;tr&gt;
    &lt;% unless @people.empty? %&gt;
      &lt;% @people.each do |person| %&gt;
        &lt;td&gt;&lt;%= person.id %&gt;&lt;/td&gt;
        &lt;td&gt;&lt;%= link_to person.full_name, person %&gt;&lt;/td&gt;
        &lt;td&gt;&lt;%= person.dob %&gt;&lt;/td&gt;
        &lt;td&gt;&lt;%= person.gender_to_s %&gt;&lt;/td&gt;
        &lt;td&gt;
          &lt;% person.addresses.each do |f| %&gt;
            &lt;%= f.full_address %&gt;
          &lt;% end %&gt;
        &lt;/td&gt;
        &lt;td&gt;&lt;%#= link_to 'Edit', edit_person_path(person) %&gt; 
          &lt;%= link_to(edit_person_path(person), class: "btn btn-small") do %&gt;
            Edit &lt;i class="icon-edit icon-white"&gt;&lt;/i&gt;
          &lt;% end %&gt;
  
          &lt;!-- This currently works but smells --&gt;
          &lt;%= link_to(person, class: "btn btn-small btn-danger", confirm: t_deletion_confirm(person, person.full_name), method: :delete, :title =&gt; t('EHM-G.destroy')) do %&gt;
            Destroy &lt;i class="icon-trash icon-white"&gt;&lt;/i&gt;
          &lt;% end %&gt;
        &lt;/td&gt;
      &lt;% end %&gt;
    &lt;tr&gt;
    &lt;% else %&gt;
      &lt;td&gt;Move along nothing to see here&lt;td&gt;
    &lt;% end %&gt;
  &lt;/tr&gt;
  &lt;/tbody&gt;                                        
  &lt;/table&gt;
  
  &lt;br /&gt;
  
  &lt;%#= link_to 'New Person', new_person_path %&gt;
  &lt;%= link_to(new_person_path, class: "btn btn-success") do %&gt;
    New Person &lt;i class="icon-plus icon-white"&gt;&lt;/i&gt;
  &lt;% end %&gt;
  &lt;/div&gt;
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>So how do I get the message "Move along nothing to see here" (Credit to Github) to "span" the entire width of the row and for the existing headings to look pretty?</p>
  
  <p>Thanks</p>
  
  <p>P.S. The buttons are grey as the scaffolding.css.scss seems to override bootstrap-sass. When the scaffold file is deleted it reverts to normal service.</p>