best practice for modifying html header in templates

rubyonrails-talk
#1

In my rails app, I have a few resources whose header needs differ from
the rest of the resources - they need extra javascript libraries, or
different css stylesheets, or link to an RSS feed to which I'd also like
to link in the html header. All pages share a standard layout template,
of course. I'm wondering what the best practice is for adding extra
stuff to the html header for individual pages. Currently, I populate
@extra_javascripts and @extra_stylesheets variables in the page
templates that require extra love, and check for the existence of those
variables in the master layout and add the links as necessary. I could
do this again for my rss feed, but this strikes me as a bit smelly. Has
anyone tackled a better approach to this?

- donald

#2

In my rails app, I have a few resources whose header needs differ from
the rest of the resources - they need extra javascript libraries, or
different css stylesheets, or link to an RSS feed to which I'd also like
to link in the html header. All pages share a standard layout template,
of course. I'm wondering what the best practice is for adding extra
stuff to the html header for individual pages. Currently, I populate
@extra_javascripts and @extra_stylesheets variables in the page
templates that require extra love, and check for the existence of those
variables in the master layout and add the links as necessary. I could
do this again for my rss feed, but this strikes me as a bit smelly. Has
anyone tackled a better approach to this?

In your views do something like this:

<% content_for("page_header") do -%>
   <%= javascript_include_tag 'my_special_js' %>
   ....
<% end -%>

Then in your layout do this:

...
<head>
...
<%= yield "page_header" %>
...
</head>

We do this and it works quite well. Another nice one is "page_ending_javascript" for those odd cases where the javascript has to go at the end of the page just before the closing </body>.

-philip

#3

In your views do something like this:

<% content_for("page_header") do -%>
   <%= javascript_include_tag 'my_special_js' %>
   ....
<% end -%>

Then in your layout do this:

...
<head>
...
<%= yield "page_header" %>
...
</head>

That's _exactly_ the elegant solution I was hoping existed. Many thanks.

- donald

#4

That's a really cool solution Philip. Learn something new very other day.

thanx.
Jodi

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