Question

I’m trying to change the layout of my application according to a GET parameter passed in the URL of each request : &layout=name_of_the_layout.

And in my application_controller :

class ApplicationController < ActionController::Base
  layout :get_layout_from_params

  private
  def get_layout_from_params
    if params['layout']
      params['layout']
    else
      'application'
    end
  end
end

It works fine, but to “persist” the layout when the the user navigates in the application, I need to add this parameter on each rails route helper in my views (even for POST requests in forms…):

ressource_path(@ressource, :layout => get_layout_from_url())

where get_layout_from_url() is a helper that checks if the params['layout'] is set in the URL, validates then returns it.

This is definitely not DRY… How can i override every route helper to include this behavior without writing any additional code in my views? I would like to call the standard rails methods in my views : ressource_path(@ressource), ...

Or is there a smarter way to achieve this?

PS : Im using rails 3.2.3

Thanks !

Answer 1

There was the old and deprecated default_url_options now replaced by url_options :

class ApplicationController < ActionController::Base
  def url_options
    { :layout => validate_layout }.merge(super)
  end

  def validate_layout
    # some stuff reusable
    params[:layout]
  end
end

If it doesn’t fit, it is close.