Question

I’m trying to build out an app and I started getting confused when to use a partial as opposed to simply refactoring code. In other words, when should I use ‘render’ and ‘render partial: ……..”

And if I put something in the “shared” folder under “views” does that make it a partial? Not sure when to use these different folders. Thanks a whole bunch!

Answer 1

Normally you use ‘render’ for just move some html codes, like “footer”.

If you want the partial with its own layout or pass variables in it. We will use ‘render :partial’

<%= render "footer" %> # Basic usage
<%= render "shared/footer" %> # _footer.html will be placed in "shared/_footer.html"

<%= render :partial => "sidebar", :layout => "sidebar_layout" %>
# It will using "_sidebar_layout" as a layout template for "_sidebar.html"

<%= render :partial => "form", :locals => { :post => @post } %>
# Passing @post variable as post in form partial

Reference: http://guides.rubyonrails.org/layouts_and_rendering.html#using-partials