Rails conditional ('if') statements based on controller action

Question

There might be a better way to do this, but I\'m trying to make an if statement in rails, based on the current action, in a controller (this will be used in a view).

For

Answer 1

It's not good practice IMO to have partials asking what the current controller and action names are. Think "tell, don't ask" (http://www.pragprog.com/articles/tell-dont-ask). That is, rather than having the partial ask it's caller about its state, tell the partial what you want it to do.

One way to do this is by passing variables to the partial through the locals option:

<%= render :partial => "/common/toolbar", :locals => {:edit => true} %>

Then in the partial:

<% if defined?(edit) && edit %>
... stuff appropriate to edit mode
<% end %>

Answer 2

The params hash that is available in the controller contains :controller and :action keys, which specify the controller and action names of the request.

Therefore you could say

if params[:action] == "foo"
  # Show stuff for action 'foo'
elsif params[:action] == "bar"
  # Show stuff for action 'bar'
elsif ...
  # etc.
end

Answer 3

You can use layouts for partials too:

<%= render :partial => 'some_partial', :layout => 'wrap_with_stuff' %>

If you want to work out what layout to use dynamically I'd put that in a helper. So you'd end up with

# In your view

<%= render :partial => 'some_partial', :layout => layout_for_my_partial %>

# In your helper

def layout_for_my_partial
    params[:action] == 'show' ? 'show_wrapper' : 'everything_else_wrapper'
end

This will only work in some circumstances, but might be what you're trying to do.

See more here.

http://ryandaigle.com/articles/2007/8/3/what-s-new-in-edge-rails-partials-get-layouts

Answer 4

You can do it this way:

class ApplicationController < ActionController::Base
  layout :set_layout

  def set_layout
    case params[:action]
    when "foo"
      "foo_layout"
    when "bar"
      "bar_layout"
    ...
    else
      "default_layout"
    end
  end

  ...

end

hope it helps =)