Question

I implemented the official Creating the Blog Application project as per the directions given. But I am not getting the idea of link_to used in this project like:

<td><%= link_to 'Show', post %></td>
<td><%= link_to 'Edit', edit_post_path(post) %></td>
<td><%= link_to 'Destroy', post, :confirm => 'Are you sure?', :method => :delete %></td>

given in app/views/posts/index.html.erb file, also corresponding code in app/controllers/posts_controller.rb for rendering html pages in app/views/posts/ directory.

If I want to render a new html page say index2.html.erb in app/views/posts/ directory that does not have ‘Edit’ and ‘Destroy’ links compared to index.html.erb, then how should I write link_to and corresponding code in posts_controller.rb ?

Answer 1

If you want an action called index2, say for a example URL like http://localhost:3000/posts/index2, then you need to:

1. Create an action (method) for it in the posts_controller.rb:

   class PostsController < ApplicationController
     ...
     def index2
     end
     ...
   end
   

2. Create a view file for it in the app/views directory called index2.html.erb

3. Add a route to config/routes.rb, for example:

   resources :posts do
     member do
       get 'index2'
     end
   end
   

To link to the newly created index2 page, add a link in some other html.erb file to it like this:

link_to "index 2",index2_post_path

I highly recommend the book Agile Web Development with Rails (Pragmatic Programmers)