Efficient use of layouts - how do I?

Rails
1

Hi:

I have one application and four controllers. 3 controllers need
identical code in their layouts. The fourth is a superset of the
other 3. To be more specific, there is 10 lines of code buried
between the & tags that only is required for the
fourth controller.

What is the most efficient way to get this done? I know that if they
all required the same code, that I could just put that code in a
file called application.rhtml at the root layout level, but that is
not quite the case here.

Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

bruce

PS. Would anyone also like to recommend to me an excellent book on
object oriented programming? If it could be based on ruby that would
be ideal but not necessary.

2

On 12/8/05, Bruce B. [email protected] wrote:

file called application.rhtml at the root layout level, but that is
not quite the case here.

Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

bruce

PS. Would anyone also like to recommend to me an excellent book on
object oriented programming? If it could be based on ruby that would
be ideal but not necessary.

Use one layout for all 4 controllers and put this into the head section:

... ... <%= @content_for_head %>

Then in the odd controller views that need extra content:

<% content_for ‘head’ do -%>
…
…
<% end -%>

–
rick
http://techno-weenie.net

3

Rick:

Thanks so much. Very cool new feature I did not know about (new to
me). Much appreciated, as is the speed of your reply.

bruce

4

Rick O. <technoweenie@…> writes:

<% content_for ‘head’ do -%>
…
…
<% end -%>

–
rick
http://techno-weenie.net

I have two layout-related questions I’d like to piggy-back on this one.
First,
what other @content_for_… helpers may be lurking out there and where
can I
look to find them all.

Second, can layouts be nested? I know you can have named layouts, then
rails
next looks for one matching the name of your controller, then finally
for
application.rhtml. What I’d like to know is this. Say for example I
define the
outer border of my page in my application.rhtml and have my
@content_for_body
inside of a table. Can I then create controller layout files that would
define
the upper nav section as a table row to be included in the outer
application
layout, then have the bulk of my table built by a named layout replacing
the
@content_for_body in my controller layout?

Hopefully I’ve explained this well, but my question really is can you
nest
layouts based on the default rails search path?