Question

say in my application controller, I have a before_filter that gets fired, loads some @instance_variables that I will use in my application layout file.

is it possible to load data based on the action that will be rendered? If yes, how can I figure out the action that is about to be called?

Answer 1

You could either split them up in separate filters.

before_filter :task_show_index, :only => [:index, :show]
before_filter :task_create, :only => :create

or you could read from params

case params[:action]
  when "show"
    # Do something
  when "create"
    #Do something else
end