\
**Category:** Rails\
**Created:** [April 18, 2007, 9:25pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/best-practice-for-modifying-html-header-in-templates/92377 "2007-04-18T21:25:54Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1
**Author:**  [@BallS\_Donald\_A\_Jr\_S](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/BallS_Donald_A_Jr_S)\
**Post date:** [April 18, 2007, 9:25pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/best-practice-for-modifying-html-header-in-templates/92377/1 "2007-04-18T21:25:54Z")
In my rails app, I have a few resources whose header needs differ from
the rest of the resources - they need extra javascript libraries, or
different css stylesheets, or link to an RSS feed to which I’d also like
to link in the html header. All pages share a standard layout template,
of course. I’m wondering what the best practice is for adding extra
stuff to the html header for individual pages. Currently, I populate
@extra\_javascripts and @extra\_stylesheets variables in the page
templates that require extra love, and check for the existence of those
variables in the master layout and add the links as necessary. I could
do this again for my rss feed, but this strikes me as a bit smelly. Has
anyone tackled a better approach to this?
- donald
---
**Author:**  [@BallS\_Donald\_A\_Jr\_S](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/BallS_Donald_A_Jr_S)\
**Post date:** [April 18, 2007, 9:58pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/best-practice-for-modifying-html-header-in-templates/92377/2 "2007-04-18T21:58:57Z")
> anyone tackled a better approach to this?
> In your views do something like this:
\<% content\_for(“page\_header”) do -%\>
\<%= javascript\_include\_tag ‘my\_special\_js’ %\>
…
\<% end -%\>
Then in your layout do this:
…
... \<%= yield "page\_header" %\> ...
We do this and it works quite well. Another nice one is
“page\_ending\_javascript” for those odd cases where the javascript has to
go at the end of the page just before the closing .
-philip
---
**Author:**  [@BallS\_Donald\_A\_Jr\_S](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/BallS_Donald_A_Jr_S)\
**Post date:** [April 18, 2007, 10:20pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/best-practice-for-modifying-html-header-in-templates/92377/3 "2007-04-18T22:20:01Z")
> ... \<%= yield "page\_header" %\> ...
That’s _exactly_ the elegant solution I was hoping existed. Many thanks.
- donald
---
**Author:**  [@BallS\_Donald\_A\_Jr\_S](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/BallS_Donald_A_Jr_S)\
**Post date:** [April 19, 2007, 2:13am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/best-practice-for-modifying-html-header-in-templates/92377/4 "2007-04-19T02:13:19Z")
On 18-Apr-07, at 4:18 PM, Ball, Donald A Jr ((Library)) wrote:
> > …
That’s a really cool solution Philip. Learn something new very other
day.
thanx.
Jodi