Question

Quite new to Ruby on Rails and I am stuck on probably an easy task. Basically I am working on a colleague’s app and need to add an additional page that shows users how the app works. I have already written the HTML and styles. I just don’t know how to exactly add it to Rails and configure the routes properly. Any help would be appreciated!

Answer 1

First make sure that your colleague did not already create a controller to handle static pages. Look under app/controllers for controllers titled anything similar to directories_controller or pages_controller, etc. If he/she has, follow the pattern your colleague already set up (you might want to ask him/her for guidance at that point). If there is not static pages controller like that, then follow the advice below.

You can create a controller named something like PagesController that defines methods that match a route. For instance, your additional page might be called “help”, in which case you can define a controller like so:

class PagesController < ActionController::Base
  def help
    # put any code here that you need 
    # (although for a static view you probably won't have any)
  end
end

Then you’ll want to create a new folder under app/views titled pages, and you can add your static page there (app/views/pages) with a .erb extension. Using a .erb will allow your new page to use the default layout.

Finally, you’ll need to add this controller to routes.rb in (config/routes.rb) to tell rails where to look for the /help page:

match '/help' => 'pages#help'