"Timothy Goddard" <interfecus / gmail.com> wrote ...
:
<snip>
:
: The models you produce are accessible from all controllers. If you
: create an "Entry" model then you can use it from any controller or
: directly from a view.
:
Of course...

: For the views, rails uses a system of 'partials' for repeated content.
: If you want to have a common layout for guestbook entries you could
: create a file called '_entry.rhtml' (note the leading underscore).
: Within the same controller you can call "render :partial => 'entry'" to
: render this partial once. To access it from another controller use
: "render :partial => 'entries/entry'" (where 'entries' is the directory
: under ./views/ that the partial is found in.)
:
I was actually using :partials in my attempts. Eventhough it worked ok
I couldn't help but feel it doesn't quite meet my requirements.

Further readings lead me to helpers (again not quite what I want) and
components (render_component). BINGO! It seems components is
what I was after.

: Note that partials don't have access to the local variables of the
: original view. You need to pass these in under the option 'locals'.
: e.g. "render :partial => 'entry', :locals => {:entry => @entry}" will
: give the partial a local variable 'entry' containing the contents of
: @entry.
:
: If you want to iterate over an array of entries, rendering the partial
: for each one, use "render :partial => 'entry', :collection =>
: @entries". The partial will have the local variable with the same name
: as itself ('entry') set to the current entry to render.
:
: I hope this is a decent introduction and isn't too confusing. I started
: using rails about a month and a half ago and am absolutely loving it.
: The book "Agile Development with Rails" provides a very good
: introduction all the way from the very basics to advanced use of Rails'
: powerful environment. I highly recommend it.
:
Clear as mudd ... ;)

Seriously, a very decent explanation of render :partial that even connect
the dots.

Thanks Tim,

..k