radar / nested-layouts

Rails 2.1.1 broke nested-layouts, this is the "fixed" version, Compatible with >2.3.2!

This URL has Read+Write access

Now it's *really* markdown.
radar (author)
Mon Sep 28 21:27:07 -0700 2009
commit  a75de05e0bf300c62ec3c42082bc944f11339b05
tree    d269325142b6eb5b3e55cc5401784d3e796b5d6c
parent  4aa1e986c406a2dbf78ab7857df014426873a126
name age
history
message
file README.markdown Mon Sep 28 21:27:07 -0700 2009 Now it's *really* markdown. [radar]
file Rakefile Thu Sep 18 19:05:19 -0700 2008 Original version of nested layouts [radar]
file init.rb Thu Sep 18 19:05:19 -0700 2008 Original version of nested layouts [radar]
directory lib/ Loading commit data...
README.markdown

NestedLayouts

Plugin allows to specify outer layouts for particular layout thus creating nested layouts.

Usage

Download it from http://github.com/radar/nested-layouts or via Rails plugin script: ./script/plugin install git://github.com/radar/nested-layouts.git

Wrapping layout into another layout

Let's assume you have controller which action 'hello' just was called. Controller was set up to use 'inner' layout:

app/controllers/hello_controller.rb

class HelloController < ApplicationController
  layout 'inner'

  def hello
    render :text => 'Hello, world!'
  end
end

app/views/layouts/inner.rhtml

<% inside_layout 'outer' do -%>
  <div class="hello">
    <h1>Greetings</h1>
    <%= yield %>
  </div>
<% end -%>

app/views/layouts/outer.rhtml

<html>
<body>
  <div class="content">
    <%= yield %>
  </div>
</body>
</html>

Result will look like this (formatted for better reading):

<html>
<body>
  <div class="content">
    <div class="hello">
      <h1>Greetings</h1>
      Hello, world!
    </div>
  </div>
</body>
</html>

Concept

Concept of layout nesting here is based on the assumption that every inner layout is used only to customize it's outer layout and thus every inner layout is used only with one specific outer layout. With this in mind we can conclude that every layout must know it's outer layout and thus information about outer layout must be embeded directly into inner layout. Controller doesn't need to know about the whole stack of layouts, so you should just specify the most inner layout in it.

Passing data

You can pass data from inner layout to outer one, e.g.:

layouts/inner.rhtml

<% content_for 'menu' do -%>
  <ul>
    <li><a href="about_us">About Us</a></li>
    <li><a href="products">Products</a></li>
  </ul>
<% end -%>

<% inside_layout 'outer' do -%>
  <% @other_data_for_outer_layout = 'foo' -%>
  <%= yield %>
<% end -%>

layouts/outer.rhtml

<%= yield 'menu' %>
<br/>
The data was: <%= @other_data_for_outer_layout %>
<br/>
<%= yield %>

Inline layouts

Instead of using layout stored in file system, you can use +inside_inline_layout+ to wrap template part into some template code passed as a string. It is usefull if you want to use layouts that are stored in DB:

Layout model

class Layout < ActiveRecord::Base
  # Has attributes 'name' and 'contents'
end

Helper

module ApplicationHelper
  def inside_db_layout(name, &block)
    layout = Layout.find_by_name(name)
    template = layout ? layout.contents : '<%= yield %>'
    inside_inline_layout(template, &block)
  end
end

View

<% inside_db_layout 'layout_from_db1' do %>
  Content
<% end %>

== Bugs & Feedback

Plugin originally by Маxim Kulkin (maxim.kulkin@gmail.com)

If you encounter any bugs or has some feature proposal, feel free to email it to radarlistener@gmail.com.