New Radiant extension: File Based Layout

Ruby Apps Radiant CMS
1

Hi,

As I am building hybrid Radiant/Rails apps, I have had a great need
to share the same layout between the Rails app and the Radiant pages.
I have built an extension that allows Radiant Layouts to refer to a
traditional Rails layout (.rhtml-file).

The extension can be downloaded from http://svn.casperfabricius.com/
extensions/file_based_layout/. The text below is a detailed
description from the README file.

Best regards,
Casper F.

= File Based Layout

This extension allows pages served by Radiant to share a standard
file-based Rails layout with Rails-generated pages. Full ERb can be
used as normal in the layout, however, Radiant tags cannot currently
be used in the layouts.

Tested with Radiant 0.6.2

== Installation

  1. Place this extension in the RAILS_ROOT/vendor/extensions/
    file_based_layout directory
  2. Run % rake db:migrate:extensions

== Usage

You must have a Rails layout file ready in the app/views/layouts/
directory of Radiant or an extension.

=== The Rails layout (.rhtml) file

There are no special requirements to the layout file. It contain
anything a normal Rails app will accept.

The body page part is always rendered where it says <%= yield %> in
the layout. Other page parts are rendered where they yielded by their
name.

For instance, the page part “extended” are rendered where the layout
says <%= yield :extended %>.

=== The Radiant Administration interface

Create a new layout from the “Layouts tab”. Click the “More” link
below the “Name” text-box, and select a layout file. Any contents in
the “Body” text area will be ignored.

Any page that has this new Layout, or has inherited the layout, will
now render using the selected Rails layout file.

== Changes made by this extension

  • layout_file field added to the Layouts table
  • file_based? method added to the Layout model
  • SiteController’s show_uncached_page method overridden to render
    using a file-based layout, or normal
  • Render methods added to SiteController (eventually forwarding to
    Page’s render methods), to be able to map various page parts to
    different content snippets in the layout
  • LayoutController’s new and edit method changed to supply list of
    layout files to the view
  • Layout File drop-down list added to the Layout edit view
    (overridden by the extension)