How to do static content in Rails?
thoughtbot has a plugin called high_voltage for displaying static content: https://github.com/thoughtbot/high_voltage
How to do static content in Rails?
thoughtbot has a plugin called high_voltage for displaying static content: https://github.com/thoughtbot/high_voltage
Static pages in Rails?
There are a variety of approaches you can take (they're not all good approaches).
1 - public
directory
If it's truly static, you can put it in the public
directory. Things in the public
directory will be served immediately, without going through the Rails stack.
Advantages:
- Because it doesn't have to waste time going through the Rails stack, the client will receive a faster response.
Disadvantages:
- You won't be able to use your sites layout. Or view helpers like
link_to
. - Instead of your views being in one place (
app/views
), now they're in two places (app/views
andpublic
). This can be confusing.
Thoughts: I feel pretty strongly that the disadvantages outweigh the advantages here. If you're looking to make a minor improvement in speed at the expense of readability and programmer happiness, why use Rails in the first place?
2 - Place in app/views
and render directly from the Router
It is possible to render views from the router. However, it definitely isn't The Rails Way.
From the official RailsGuide on routing:
1 The Purpose of the Rails Router
The Rails router recognizes URLs and dispatches them to a controller's action.
Architecturally, there isn't anything inherently wrong with having a router map directly to a view. Many other frameworks do just that. However, Rails does not do that, and deviating from an established convention is likely to confuse other developers.
like should I create a controller or not?
Unless you want to take one of the approaches mentioned above - yes, you should create a controller.
The question then becomes what to name the controller. This answer outlines some options. I'll list them here with some thoughts. I'll also add three other options.
3 - Use ApplicationController
# routes.rb
get "/about" to: "application#about"
# application_controller.rb
class ApplicationController < ActionController::Base
def about
render "/about"
end
end
# app/views/about.html.erb
The advantage here is that you don't introduce overhead/bloat by creating a new controller and folder. The disadvantage is that it's not The Rails Way. Every controller you create inherits from ApplicationController
. ApplicationController
is typically used to house functionality that you want to share between all other controllers. See this example from the Action Controller Overview Rails Guide:
class ApplicationController < ActionController::Base
before_action :require_login
private
def require_login
unless logged_in?
flash[:error] = "You must be logged in to access this section"
redirect_to new_login_url # halts request cycle
end
end
end
4 - StaticController
or StaticPagesController
Michael Hartl's popular Ruby on Rails Tutorial uses a StaticPagesController
. I agree with the source I got this from in that I don't like this approach because the pages often aren't actually static.
Also, there is a possibility of confusion - why did we put other static views in separate controllers? Shouldn't static views be rendered from the StaticPagesController
? I don't think the possibility of confusion is too high, but still wanted to note it.
Also note Hartl's footnote:
Our method for making static pages is probably the simplest, but it’s not the only way. The optimal method really depends on your needs; if you expect a large number of static pages, using a Static Pages controller can get quite cumbersome, but in our sample app we’ll only need a few. If you do need a lot of static pages, take a look at the high_voltage gem. ↑
5 - PagesController
The official Ruby on Rails routing guide uses PagesController
. I think this approach is fine, but it isn't descriptive at all. Everything is a page. What distinguishes these pages from the other pages?
6 - UncategorizedPagesController
I would call the controller UncategorizedPagesController
, because that's exactly what they are - uncategorized pages. Yes, it's a little more cumbersome to type and read. I prefer the advantage of clarity over conciseness, but I could understand the choice to be more concise and go with PagesController
, or something else.
7 - High Voltage gem
With High Voltage, you don't have to do the tedious work of writing out routes and empty controller actions:
# routes.rb
root 'pages#home'
get '/about', to: 'pages#about'
get '/contact', to: 'pages#contact'
get '/help', to: 'pages#help'
get '/terms-of-service', to: 'pages#terms_of_service'
get '/landing-page', to: 'pages#landing_page'
...
# pages_controller.rb
def PagesController < ApplicationController
def home
end
def about
end
def contact
end
def help
end
def terms_of_service
end
def landing_page
end
...
end
You just add your pages to app/views/pages
and link to them: <%= link_to 'About', page_path('about') %>
.
Serving a static file from a specific URL in rails
The easiest method is to place the file in your public directory. By default this serves static assets in most cases.
How does Rails serve static content out of public?
Rails doesn't use Rack::Static
, it has its own version, ActionDispatch::Static
. You should see it if you run rake middleware
.
This is only added to the Rails middleware stack if config.serve_static_assets
is true. This setting defaults to true, but the default generated config/environments/production.rb
turns if off.
The idea is that during development you have a simple single process that you can run and check everything is working and where performance isn't an issue, but when you deploy to production you configure your webserver (usually Apache or Nginx) to serve the static files as it is much better at that than Ruby.
If you use Heroku, their latest Cedar stack doesn't use a separate webserver for static files, so as part of the deploy process they inject a Rails plugin to serve static assets. All this plugin does is set serve_static_assets
to true.
Rails: How to link to static pages
in your routes.rb you should have something like
get '/page', to: 'path#page', as: :page
where path is the folder where the page file is in
eg
get '/page', to: 'layout#page', as: :page
then you will link with
<li><%= link_to "page", page_path %>
Static pages to ruby on rails
Start with a single model and controller for companies. Create a index
method inside the app/controllers/companies_controller
. Then create the content inside file app/views/companies/index.html.erb
to check that everything works, for example:
<h1> Hi! This is root page and index method in CompaniesController! </h1>
In config/routes.rb
, you must specify a plural name for companies
if you plan to create and process more than one, and leave it as it is, if the entity is the only one company for this project. Set plural name for this resource for this moment to create standard routes for CRUD:
resources :companies
root to: "companies#index"
More about routes you can find in rails guide.
You can try using the built-in scaffold generator in order to quickly generate the application skeleton:
rails generate scaffold companies
The command above will generate controller, model, views and routes with CRUD methods in controller and views for the controller methods. Each view in app/views/"resource_name_plural"
adjusted with method in controller in config/routes.rb
file. This is how the MVC pattern works.
If you want to create static pages, maybe you should look at the high_voltage gem.
Related Topics
How to Deal With the Sum of Rounded Percentage Not Being 100
To Use Self. or Not.. in Rails
Undefined Method Attr_Accessible
Why Should We Avoid Using Class Variables @@ in Rails
Gem Eventmachine Fatal Error: 'Openssl/Ssl.H' File Not Found
Putting French (Accented) Characters in Ruby File
Why Won't Heroku Accept My Gemfile.Lock in Windows
How Does Array#Map Have Parameter to Do Something Like This
Installing Vim with Ruby Support (+Ruby)
How to Change the Default Path of View Files in a Rails 3 Controller
Rails Model, View, Controller, and Helper: What Goes Where
When Do I Need to Restart Server in Rails
Ruby Local Variable Is Undefined
Xpath Axis, Get All Following Nodes Until