# Layout Problem: No page headers or footers! **URL:** \ **Category:** Rails\ **Created:** [October 21, 2007, 3:22pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/layout-problem-no-page-headers-or-footers/117850 "2007-10-21T15:22:57Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![f212](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/f/eb9ed0/32.png) [@f212](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/f212)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2007, 3:22pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/layout-problem-no-page-headers-or-footers/117850/1 "2007-10-21T15:22:57Z")
Noob here. Been walking through the depot example in AWDWR second edition and discovered when I tried to add styling I found that my pages were not being wrapped by the layout template: They had no headers or footers, hence no css declaration, hence no styling. The body appears in my browser just fine. What’s going on here? My specifics are that I’m running on Mac OS X 10.4.10, with a RoR install verbatim from > **[Dan Benjamin](https://danbenjamin.com)** > > Dan Benjamin's personal website. Essentially Ruby 1.8.6, Gems 0.9.2, and a Rails install from gems done last week. The code I’m using for the depot is downloaded directly from the AWDWR site and includes: - 003\_add\_test\_data.rb - the images on the site - admin.rhtml - depot.css - list.rhtml Did I miss something? Do I need to set a switch or something? My code seems to be falling into the right places, so I’m kind of at a loss for what’s going on. ---
**Author:** ![f212](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/f/eb9ed0/32.png) [@f212](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/f212)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2007, 3:29pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/layout-problem-no-page-headers-or-footers/117850/2 "2007-10-21T15:29:22Z")
Add an application.rhtml (or application.hthl.erb if you’re on 2.0 PR), and add stuff there. Insert a \<%= yield % \> where you want the contents to appear. ---
**Author:** ![f212](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/f/eb9ed0/32.png) [@f212](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/f212)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2007, 5:30pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/layout-problem-no-page-headers-or-footers/117850/3 "2007-10-21T17:30:38Z")
Assuming the layout [with the headers and footers] is in admin.rhtml, you’ll want to make sure you use ``` layout "admin" ``` in yr controller. Or do as August suggests and just rename admin.rhtml to application.rhtml and the layout will load automatically. RSL ---
**Author:** ![f212](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/f/eb9ed0/32.png) [@f212](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/f212)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2007, 5:47pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/layout-problem-no-page-headers-or-footers/117850/4 "2007-10-21T17:47:00Z")
Thanks for the quick reply, August. Much appreciated. Do you mean place a file named “application.rhtml” with the appropriate header and footer and \<%= yield % \> into the app/views/ layouts directory? I already have have a .rhtml with the same prefix as my controller sitting in the app/views/layouts directory. If I need a file named “application.rhtml”, why didn’t rails generate that? Did I miss a step? FYI, my setup looks like the following: As per the AWDWR depot example, the critical component is admin, and I have an… - admin\_controller.rb in the controllers dir - admin directory in app/views that contains list.rhtml - admin.rhtml in app/views/layouts My directory structure looks like this: app controllers admin\_controller.rb application.rb helpers models views admin \_form.rhtml edit.rhtml list.rhtml new.rhtml show.rhtml layouts admin.rtml components config etc… My admin.rhtml in app/views/layouts looks like this: * * * Admin: \<%= controller.action\_name %\> \<%= stylesheet\_link\_tag 'scaffold' %\> \<%= flash[:notice] %\> \<%= yield :layout %\> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ I also tried simply \<%= yield % \> in the .rhtml above. No difference in the outcome. Again, thanks in advance for any help! ---
**Author:** ![f212](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/f/eb9ed0/32.png) [@f212](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/f212)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2007, 6:12pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/layout-problem-no-page-headers-or-footers/117850/5 "2007-10-21T18:12:10Z")
Russell, We crossed posts. My response above was to August. I just tried your suggestions, changing admin.rhtml to application.rhtml and using layout “admin” in the controller. Neither solved the problem. Don’t know what the issue is with changing admin.rhtml to application.rhtml, but I bet the issue with the layout “admin” solution is that, since I’m a noob, I don’t know where in the controller (I’m guessing the admin controller) the line would go. Additionally, I doubt my syntax is correct. What I did was, within admin\_controller.rb, I changed … def list @product\_pages, @products = paginate :products, :per\_page =\> 10 end … to … def list layout “admin” @product\_pages, @products = paginate :products, :per\_page =\> 10 end … Sorry if I wasn’t to take things so literal, Russell, but since I don’t know ruby yet, I gotta take everything at face value. thx y’all, and any further help would be really nice. Further insight into why the application.rhtml solution isn’t working would be great too. In fact, the problem with application.rhtml may be a clue to the problem with everything. ---
**Author:** ![f212](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/f/eb9ed0/32.png) [@f212](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/f212)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2007, 8:42pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/layout-problem-no-page-headers-or-footers/117850/6 "2007-10-21T20:42:32Z")
Do you have a file called app/views/layouts/application.rhtml? If so, make sure you do not have a call to the layout method in your controller (like layout :scaffold). -Bill f212 wrote: > Did anyone else do a clean install last week? > > > – Sincerely, William P. ---
**Author:** ![f212](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/f/eb9ed0/32.png) [@f212](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/f212)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2007, 8:00pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/layout-problem-no-page-headers-or-footers/117850/7 "2007-10-21T20:00:26Z")
A further note… Just added a new page (the AWDWR store index on page 97), and it doesn’t get wrapped with headers or footers either. Rails finds the page, parses the rhtml, and sends it to the browser, but the layout nesting is just plain missing. Could the version of Rails I’m using be buggy? (I doubt it, but something’s very fishy here.) Did anyone else do a clean install last week? ---
**Author:** ![f212](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/f/eb9ed0/32.png) [@f212](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/f212)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2007, 12:56am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/layout-problem-no-page-headers-or-footers/117850/8 "2007-10-22T00:56:29Z")
FIGURED IT OUT! And it was none of the above. What it was was that my initial setup for the depot app also installed rubyAMF, with the thought that I could experiment with some FlexRailing at a later point. Don’t know if you’ve all chatted about this and it’s old news, but for a noob like me, I found it pretty odd. For some reason > > > RubyAMF forces Rails to ignore layouts!\<\<\< There you have it. ---
**Author:** ![f212](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/f/eb9ed0/32.png) [@f212](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/f212)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2007, 12:49pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/layout-problem-no-page-headers-or-footers/117850/9 "2007-12-06T12:49:06Z")
Plz explain me in detial, am new to RoR…