How to respond to HTML requests made via AJAX in Rails

Question

I\'m trying to write a Rails controller method that will respond to get requests made both \"normally\" (e.g. following a link) and via ajax.

Normal Case: The controller

Answer 1

In your controller dynamically select whether to use a layout based on request.xhr?.

For example:

class SomeController < ApplicationController
  layout :get_layout

  protected

  def get_layout
    request.xhr? ? nil : 'normal_layout'
  end
end