# Formating @content\_for\_layout **URL:** \ **Category:** Rails\ **Created:** [February 15, 2006, 2:28am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/formating-content-for-layout/68457 "2006-02-15T02:28:31Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Toph](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/t/848f3c/32.png) [@Toph](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Toph)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2006, 2:28am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/formating-content-for-layout/68457/1 "2006-02-15T02:28:31Z")
Hi all, I sent a message earlier, so forgive me if you have already read this (I got some cryptic message in German about how my e-mail was not read?). Anyway, I was just wondering if there was any way to format the html that is output using \<%= @content\_for\_layout %\> I want to use something like the PHP Beautify. I guess I could write my own, but I was hoping that Rails already had something built in. Thanks to all. Have a great day. – Topher Fangio removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid [http://www.fangiotophia.com](http://www.fangiotophia.com) Website Specialist Fangiotophia Designs (325) 660-7141 ---
**Author:** ![Toph](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/t/848f3c/32.png) [@Toph](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Toph)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2006, 2:49am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/formating-content-for-layout/68457/2 "2006-02-15T02:49:34Z")
The “content\_for\_layout” declaration simply renders a template within the layout… so… you’d probably want to just format the template in the first place ? Otherwise, assuming the @content\_for\_layout variable actually contains all the HTML (which I haven’t bothered to look at), you could run this variable through a method of your choice prior to rendering. ---
**Author:** ![Toph](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/t/848f3c/32.png) [@Toph](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Toph)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2006, 3:40am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/formating-content-for-layout/68457/3 "2006-02-15T03:40:45Z")
Yes, I was hoping that Rails already had a method to make the html pretty without me having to write one. Or a library, or something. If not, all I really want is tabs and I wrote it in PHP, so I guess I could just copy the algorithm. Thanks for the repsonse =) On 2/14/06, Dylan S. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > On 2/14/06, Toph [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > > > built in. Thanks to all. Have a great day. > > Rails mailing list – Topher Fangio removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid [http://www.fangiotophia.com](http://www.fangiotophia.com) Website Specialist Fangiotophia Designs (325) 660-7141 ---
**Author:** ![Toph](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/t/848f3c/32.png) [@Toph](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Toph)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2006, 7:39am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/formating-content-for-layout/68457/4 "2006-02-15T07:39:36Z")
There is a ruby interface to the tidy library. Sop you can use that to tidy up your html before output. Cheers- -Ezra On Feb 14, 2006, at 6:37 PM, Toph wrote: > > within the > > > > > I want to use something like the PHP Beautify. I guess I could > > > (325) 660-7141 > > > [http://lists.rubyonrails.org/mailman/listinfo/rails](http://lists.rubyonrails.org/mailman/listinfo/rails) > > Website Specialist > Fangiotophia Designs > (325) 660-7141 > > * * * > > Rails mailing list > removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid > [http://lists.rubyonrails.org/mailman/listinfo/rails](http://lists.rubyonrails.org/mailman/listinfo/rails) -Ezra Z. WebMaster Yakima Herald-Republic Newspaper removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid 509-577-7732 ---
**Author:** ![Toph](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/t/848f3c/32.png) [@Toph](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Toph)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2006, 10:01am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/formating-content-for-layout/68457/5 "2006-02-15T10:01:33Z")
Toph wrote: > I sent this earlier, but it sounds like you didn’t see any responses, so: There is a ruby interface to tidy: [http://rubyforge.org/projects/tidy/](http://rubyforge.org/projects/tidy/) Not sure what you would need to do to hook it into a rails app. You could also rewrite your rhtml files as rxml… at least I would think that building the page as an xml tree and then writing it out would create a nice neat source output. b ---
**Author:** ![Toph](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/t/848f3c/32.png) [@Toph](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Toph)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2006, 10:25am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/formating-content-for-layout/68457/6 "2006-04-14T10:25:37Z")
If someone is still interested on this topic: [http://www.cosinux.org/blogs/dam/pages/rails-tidy](http://www.cosinux.org/blogs/dam/pages/rails-tidy)