Scott Holland wrote:
I'm setting up a forum and I'm having a sidebar which will display the recent postings and will be used throughout the site. This sidebar is part of the application.rhtml layout.
How do I use data from the "forum" controller in this layout when the layout is used on all of the other controllers across the site?
Could someone point me in the right direction?
Many thanks - when I get a little more advanced I hope I can contribute as much advice as you guys have so kindly given me
Use a partial (perhaps in a /shared folder) and populate it with an instance variable set up in the application controller using a before_filter.
So something like this
_recent_postings_sidebar.rhtml
<% @recent_posts.each do |post| %> <%= post.title %> <% end %>
in the application controller :before_filter :setup_sidebar
def setup_sidebar @recent_posts = Post.find(:all, :limit => 20, :order => "created_at DESC") end
and then in your layout:
render :partial => "/shared/recent_postings_sidebar"
