Need to DRY views for a global menu

rubyonrails-talk
#1

Hi All,

I've got a bunch of views for Vendors and Users, e.g. app\views\vendors
\index.html.erb:

<h1>Listing vendors</h1>

            <div id="menu">
    <%= link_to 'Vendor', :controller=>'vendors',
               :action=>'index' %> &nbsp;
    <%= link_to 'User', :controller=>'users',
               :action=>'index' %> &nbsp;
      </div
      <br/>

<table>
  <tr>
    <th>Nickname</th>
    <th>Qbname</th>
  </tr>

<% @vendors.each do |vendor| %>
  <tr>
    <td><%=h vendor.nickname %></td>

[snip]

I pasted the div "menu" into all the views. When I change that menu,
I've got to change all of them. Pretty bad, eh?

I've also got that menu in app\views\layouts\menu.html.erb.

Can I replace the div I pasted in manually with some kind of "include"
referencing that .erb? I tried a bunch of ways to no avail.

Thanks in Advance,
Richard

#2

Hi All,

I've got a bunch of views for Vendors and Users, e.g. app\views\vendors
\index.html.erb:

<h1>Listing vendors</h1>

            <div id="menu">
    <%= link_to 'Vendor', :controller=>'vendors',
               :action=>'index' %> &nbsp;
    <%= link_to 'User', :controller=>'users',
               :action=>'index' %> &nbsp;
      </div
      <br/>

<table>
  <tr>
    <th>Nickname</th>
    <th>Qbname</th>
  </tr>

<% @vendors.each do |vendor| %>
  <tr>
    <td><%=h vendor.nickname %></td>

[snip]

I pasted the div "menu" into all the views. When I change that menu,
I've got to change all of them. Pretty bad, eh?

I've also got that menu in app\views\layouts\menu.html.erb.

Can I replace the div I pasted in manually with some kind of "include"
referencing that .erb? I tried a bunch of ways to no avail.

#3

Hi Craig,

Thanks for your response.

you need to use 'templates' but this is rather elemental

You're spot on. This is my first "real" Rails app (for my son who
runs a couple of private schools). So I'd like to get this working in
a timely but correctly implement fashion.

Following your link, I modified my working module app\views\vendors
\index.html.erb as follows

h1>Listing vendors</h1>

            <div id="menu">
    <%= link_to 'Vendor', :controller=>'vendors',
               :action=>'index' %> &nbsp;
    <%= link_to 'User', :controller=>'users',
               :action=>'index' %> &nbsp;
      </div
      <br/>

           <%= render "shared/menu" %>
      <br/>
[snip]

I left in my working menu div and hoping my menu.html.erb or menu.erb
files in app\views\shared will be invoked.

Sadly, I got:
ActionView::MissingTemplate in Vendors#index

Showing app/views/vendors/index.html.erb where line #11 raised:

Missing template shared/_menu.erb in view path app/views

Extracted source (around line #11):

8: </div
9: <br/>
10:
11: <%= render "shared/menu" %>
12:
13: <table>
14: <tr>

Can you spot where I erred?

Again, thanks in advance for any guidance you may offer.

Best wishes,
Richard

#4

Hi Craig,

Thanks for your response.

> you need to use 'templates' but this is rather elemental

You're spot on. This is my first "real" Rails app (for my son who
runs a couple of private schools). So I'd like to get this working in
a timely but correctly implement fashion.

Following your link, I modified my working module app\views\vendors
\index.html.erb as follows

h1>Listing vendors</h1>

            <div id="menu">
    <%= link_to 'Vendor', :controller=>'vendors',
               :action=>'index' %> &nbsp;
    <%= link_to 'User', :controller=>'users',
               :action=>'index' %> &nbsp;
      </div
      <br/>

           <%= render "shared/menu" %>
      <br/>
[snip]

I left in my working menu div and hoping my menu.html.erb or menu.erb
files in app\views\shared will be invoked.

Sadly, I got:
ActionView::MissingTemplate in Vendors#index

Showing app/views/vendors/index.html.erb where line #11 raised:

Missing template shared/_menu.erb in view path app/views

Extracted source (around line #11):

8: </div
9: <br/>
10:
11: <%= render "shared/menu" %>
12:
13: <table>
14: <tr>

Can you spot where I erred?

Again, thanks in advance for any guidance you may offer.

Best wishes,
Richard

> > Hi All,
>
> > I've got a bunch of views for Vendors and Users, e.g. app\views\vendors
> > \index.html.erb:
>
> > <h1>Listing vendors</h1>
>
> > <div id="menu">
> > <%= link_to 'Vendor', :controller=>'vendors',
> > :action=>'index' %> &nbsp;
> > <%= link_to 'User', :controller=>'users',
> > :action=>'index' %> &nbsp;
> > </div
> > <br/>
>
> > <table>
> > <tr>
> > <th>Nickname</th>
> > <th>Qbname</th>
> > </tr>
>
> > <% @vendors.each do |vendor| %>
> > <tr>
> > <td><%=h vendor.nickname %></td>
>
> > [snip]
>
> > I pasted the div "menu" into all the views. When I change that menu,
> > I've got to change all of them. Pretty bad, eh?
>
> > I've also got that menu in app\views\layouts\menu.html.erb.
>
> > Can I replace the div I pasted in manually with some kind of "include"
> > referencing that .erb? I tried a bunch of ways to no avail.
>
> ----http://api.rubyonrails.org/classes/ActionView/Base.html
>
> you need to use 'templates' but this is rather elemental and suggests
> that you need to check out more basic tutorials or possibly AWDWROR
> (Agile Web Development With Ruby on Rails)
>

#5

Thanks again, Craig.

I saw and understood and tried to respond to that message. Following
is the a session in a Command Window on my Win-XP/SP3 system that seem
to provide the alleged missing code:

K:\_Projects\Ruby\_Rails_Apps\_EIMS\RTS>cd app\views\shared

K:\_Projects\Ruby\_Rails_Apps\_EIMS\RTS\app\views\shared>dir
Volume in drive K is K02-100G_NT
Volume Serial Number is B00C-F65F

Directory of K:\_Projects\Ruby\_Rails_Apps\_EIMS\RTS\app\views\shared

03/08/2010 09:48 PM <DIR> .
03/08/2010 09:48 PM <DIR> ..
03/08/2010 12:54 PM 210 menu.erb
03/08/2010 12:54 PM 210 menu.html.erb
               2 File(s) 420 bytes
               2 Dir(s) 58,907,955,200 bytes free

K:\_Projects\Ruby\_Rails_Apps\_EIMS\RTS\app\views\shared>type menu.erb
<%= link_to 'Vendor', :controller=>'vendors',
                             :action=>'index' %> &nbsp;
<%= link_to 'User', :controller=>'users',
                             :action=>'index' %> &nbsp;

K:\_Projects\Ruby\_Rails_Apps\_EIMS\RTS\app\views\shared>type
menu.html.erb
<%= link_to 'Vendor', :controller=>'vendors',
                             :action=>'index' %> &nbsp;
<%= link_to 'User', :controller=>'users',
                             :action=>'index' %> &nbsp;

K:\_Projects\Ruby\_Rails_Apps\_EIMS\RTS\app\views\shared>

I know the message said "menu.erb" but I thought it might not be up-to-
date with Rails 2.3.5, which I running, along with Ruby 1.8.6.

If you're up to another look at this, I'd be in your debt.

Best wishes,
Richard

#6

OK Craig,

I got it: I missed the _ in the name. Problem solved. Thank you very
much for your help.

Best wishes,
Richard