Overlay¶ ↑

Adds a way to overlay views based on dimensions set in a template’s file name.

Inspired by the locale views as defined in local_rails and implemented post Rails 2.2.2.

Additional hints on how to set overlay dimensions can also be found on the rails guide on internationalization.

Example¶ ↑

You can set your overlay in a before filter in your ApplicationController.

before_filter :set_overlay
def set_overlay
  # user is logged in and has a cobrand 'emusic'
  Overlay.current = user.cobrand
end

Then create your layouts, views, and partials like normal. When you need to deviate from a view based on cobrand add the cobrand like so:

• views/artists/index.html.erb

• views/artists/index_emusic.html.erb

If the user’s cobrand is “emusic” then index_emusic.html.erb will be selected for render, otherwise if there is no match, index.html.erb will continue to be used as the “common” view.

Configuration¶ ↑

You can set multiple dimensions to select upon. These dimensions match filenames exactly and there is no inheritence. In your environment.rb or in an initializer:

Overlay.pattern = ':cobrand-:product'

If you do not like the dash (-) as the default separator, you can set that as well in your environment or initializer, but it must match the pattern:

Overlay.separator = '_'

Then in you filter you pass a hash instead, for syntactic sugar set_view is an alias of current=.

def set_overlay
  Overlay.set_view :cobrand => user.cobrand, :product => params[:product]
end

Then create alternate files, in this case you could end up with at least 4 variations including to the common view:

• views/artists/index.html.erb # common

• views/artists/index_emusic.html.erb # no product specified

• views/artists/index_emusic-mp3.html.erb # cobrand and product specified

• views/artists/index_mp3.html.erb # no cobrand specified

NOTE: make sure that when a dimension is not specified it is set as nil. All the dimension must always be specified for Overlay to work properly.

Tricks and Hints¶ ↑

You can use a common view with partial overlays. So for example in index.html.erb:

<%= render :partial => 'artist' %>

Then create the following partials:

• views/artists/_artist.html.erb # used when not cobranded or not emusic or lastfm

• views/artists/_artist_emusic.html.erb # used when emusic cobrand

• views/artists/_artist_lastfm.html.erb # used when lastfm cobrand

If you wanted only the cobranded partials to show up, and there is no common partial don’t add “views/artists/_artist.html.erb” but make you can pass a default:

= render :partial => 'artist', :default => nil

Internationalization (and Formats)¶ ↑

This plugin honors internationalization view locales (and formats). You can target a locale and an overlay. For instance:

• index.en.html.erb

• index.sp.html.erb

• index_emusic.en.html.erb

• index_emusic.sp.html.erb

• index_lastfm.en.html.erb

• index_lastfm.sp.html.erb

Copyright © 2009 Reid MacDonald <reid@laruby.com>, released under the MIT license