Global action to generate layout variables - grails

what is the best way to implement some action that should be executed each time a request is made?
My aim is to export some variables layout-wide, so the layout could render some fields like "You are logged in as ${userName}, Server time is ${serverTime}".
I know I can inline code in the gsp, but there should be some better way to execute some operations on each request.
Thanks in advance.

I've just found an answer here: Accessing the model from a layout view in Grails
Filters is the way to execute some global action.

You could use layouts and SiteMesh to do that automagically, but in my project, I've stopped using that, because it also has some drawbacks (like <body onload="foobar()"> no longer working...). I propose you create a template just for this info line and render it wherever appropriate.

Related

Rendering a partialview from within a helperclass in Umbraco

I have some html that is used a lot in the site i'm building. So I created a App_Code\Helpers.cshtml file and placed the helperfunction in that file.
Now, I want to render a partial-view (a MVC view for a form). But I can't use #Html.Partial("MyFormPartial", new formModel())
I can't find any other ways of rendering a partial view from within a helper class. Anybody got an idea on how to solve this?
Is a seperate helpers.cshtml even the best way for this kind of repeating html-code? I think it gives me a bit more freedom in the parameters I'm providing, instead of the macro's. But it sucks I can't use #Umbraco (without creating your own helper) or #Html :(
Just pass #Html to the helper function if you don't want to create it inside the helper function.
Nevertheless, isn't it a better idea to use a child action and render part of code you'd like to been shared?

how to implement progress bar for function in service and controller to show the status in grails platform

I am working on grails. I have a controller it calls service to check the value and one more call to do some calculation, by the time i want user to know its processing the function. Since i am new to grails , i dont know how to implement this in my project. I tried few plugins but i didnt know how to approach this by using plugin(Step by step). I need easiest way to solve this problem even this my ajax or javascript. i searched online i didnt get one.
Please help me to solve this .
Thank you.
Grails by default allows you to call controller methods with Ajax by default, you simply need to use the remoteFunction tag (http://grails.org/doc/2.2.1/ref/Tags/remoteFunction.html).
You use this by specifying an element on your page which will be updated by the html that you controller function returns, usually a gsp template.
For example, you could have your controller call the service to check for progress, and then the controller passes this returned progress amount to your gsp template. You use this value to draw a percentage, and return that html to your original page (this is whatever the controller returns - the remoteFunction tag handles the updating for you).
I suggest having a look for some examples of the remoteFunction call and going from there.
Hope that helps.

how do i dynamically change my format rendering engine in rails?

My default templating engine is haml, but I would to sometimes change it to erb if i specify a specific parameter?
For example, I am pasting in some html code and would just like to test the code without HAML complaining about its format.
Any idea how to do this?
do something like:
if params[:render_erb]
render 'file.html.erb'
else
render 'file.html.haml'
end
and call the action with ?render_erb=true
or
render "file.html.#{params[:render]}" ir params[:render]
and call it ?render=haml or ?render=erb (or nothing and it will use the default
at the end of the controller's action that you are using
Am I wrong that you simply need to save file as your_file.html.erb instead of your_file.html.haml?
You can use different templates in the same application, and you can use different template engines for views, partials, and layouts, but as far as I know you can't duck in and out of multiple template engines within the same template file.
If you just want to drop some code in using a different template language, then I'd put it in a separate partial. That certainly seems easiest in this particular case.

Still having a hard time with RoR MVC approach

I suppose it should do justice to state what I think I know so far as well as what I've done:
1) I created the app and did my first db migration; I now have my dev, test and production databases. The dev db has a table called 'wines'.
2) I made a scaffold which created the necessary files.
3) The basic index/update/destroy methods are set up and I can browse the pages.
4) From what I gather, the ActiveRecord class "Wine" automatically inherits properties from the database? Each column is a property and each row in the table 'wines' is a potentially instantiated object which is called from the wine_controller script.
The problem I'm having now is that I want to create a common layout that all controllers use. The only things that will change will be the page title, potentially some <link> tags in the header, the <body> attributes (javascript onload events most likely) and whatever lies inside the <body> tag.
I find myself looking up functions that will do what I want (like "favicon_link_tag", "stylesheet_link_tag" and "auto_discovery_link_tag"...) but I can't find the right place to PUT them! I know this has something to do with my lack of understanding of how things are executed/inherited. For example if I were to declare #pageTitle in application_controller.rb and use #pageTitle in ApplicationHelper it won't work. Or even using "stylesheet_link_tag" in application_controller.rb throws an error. I'm just not getting something.
How does each thing relate to another in terms of chronological execution, scope, etc.?
In your "app/views" directory there is a folder called "layouts." By default there should be an "application.html.erb" file in there, but if there isn't you can create it.
Your "application" layout file is the default layout file used by any view. However, if you want a particular controller to use a different view, you can override this. See this railscast, and this one is helpful too.
The main thing to understand is the content from any particular view will show up wherever the yield method appears in your application layout. The main 'yield' block gets the view file specified by your controller action, but you can mark anything inside any view to be passed to another yield block instead. For instance, the "title" example you gave could be passed to the head of your application layout. See this railscast for a detailed example of that.
For more, you should read the Rails Guide, and you might want to consider picking up a Rails starter book.
I got my feet wet with "Beginning Rails 3," which was a phenomenal introduction to the framework. A couple days with that book and it was all making sense to me, and I was developing faster than I ever had before. Rails rocks once you get to know it, but it's definitely worth going through a book.
Please continue to ask questions, I'll help if I can :)
-EDIT- To answer your question about control flow, it basically works like this:
Your browser sends a GET request for a particular URL.
The router takes that request, matches it to a controller action, triggers that controller action, and provides the controller any parameters associated with the request. For instance: if you requested example.com/posts/123?color=red this would trigger the SHOW action of your posts_controller, and would pass {:color => 'red'} to the params hash. You would access that using params[:color]
The controller action does its thing, and when it's done it renders output. By default it renders whatever view is located in app/<controller_name>/<action_name>, and will whichever file matches the extension appropriate to the request (ie an AJAX request would trigger <action_name>.js.erb and a GET request would trigger <action_name>.html.erb.
You can override this using the render method, for example by passing render 'foo/bar' to render using the view for FooController, Bar action instead of your current action.
Note that no matter what you render, the data available to the view is whatever is in the specific controller action the router triggered, not the controller action that would 'normally' render that view.
The view file is parsed using the data from the controller that called it. If you have any content_for methods then the view code that is inside the content_for block will go where you tell it, otherwise everything else will go to the main YIELD block in your application layout (or whatever layout your controller specified instead).
The application layout is parsed, and the content from the view is inserted into the appropriate areas.
The page is served to the user.
That's a simplification in some ways, but I think it answers your question. Again, feel free to keep asking :)

Which Rails Layout is Used after_filter

I need an after filter that will perform a query depending on what layout is chosen by the user for the current page.
Is there a way to see what layout is being used before the page is rendered?
Thanks.
The after_filter is executed after the page is rendered. In the after_filter you can know which layout has been used, but it's too late if you need to run a query and include the output in the layout.
You should probably follow an other way. If your query is tied to a specific layout, then create an helper containing the query and call the helper in your template.
Otherwise, provide more context about your need and we can suggest a different approach.

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