Question

I am working on a cms, and have the need for dynamic template choice in the pages controller. I have a before filter that grabs the chosen template name in the user settings. Now I need to figure out how to render the correct layout using that instance variable.

Here is what I have so far:

#This sets @template to the template object. @template.name is "Default"
before_filter :get_template

layout "templates/#{@template.name.downcase.gsub(" ", "_")}"
#layout "templates/default" #This line renders fine

I’m getting the following error:

undefined method `name' for nil:NilClass

My guess is that the before_filter doesn’t necessarily run ‘before’ the template is called.

Is there a better way that I should be trying to accomplish this? I do not really have experience in using many templates and choosing which one to render.

Thanks in advance!

Answer 1

Try this:

class PagesController < ApplicationController

  def template_path
    #... returns the template path, e.g. "layouts/theme_a"
  end

  def set_template
    self.class.layout(template_path)
  end

  before_filter :set_template

end