The "embedded actions" plugin ============================= BASIC USAGE Just like the traditional render :partial, embedded actions allow you to refactor your views and extract presentation logic and templates into separate files. Unlike partials, embedded actions also let you define business logic to be performed before the partial is included. That logic is encapsulated in the already well understood metaphor of an action inside a controller. So a simple call like <%= embed_action :controller => "songs", :action => "top10" %> lets you include an html fragment containing the top 10 songs into any of your pages, regardless of which controller, action or view wants to do the including. CACHING Embedded actions can provide caching of their results (allowing for different parameters) just like page caching, but at the level of html fragments. So your dynamic pages can still be rendered dynamically, but some of the embedded actions can be cached (and expired) independently. Just declare an action as 'cacheable' in a way similar to page caching, by invoking "caches_embedded" with the name of the action to cache. class TestController < ApplicationController caches_embedded :user_list def user_list ... end end Cached fragments can be invalidated with calls to expires_embedded, but you must remember to use the same set of parameters used to embed the cached action in the first place. Additionally, the underlying fragment caching mechanism can be passed an options hash in the following manner: caches_embedded :user_list, :ttl => 60.minutes And you can specify additional arguments to be used when generating the cache name. Which is better explained with an example: caches_embedded :user_list, :options_for_name => Proc.new do |controller| {:is_admin => controller.current_user.is_admin?} end this way, there will be two separate cached versions, one for admin users and one for regular users. The hash returned is merged with the actual hash passed on the embed_action call, and is used to create an "url-like" name for the cached fragment. So in this case, a call like <%= embed_action :action => "test" %> will produce two different fragments: "/mycontroller/test?is_admin=false" and "...?is_admin=true" depending on the result of controller.current_user.is_admin? when embed_action is called. Finally, cached fragments can be compressed before being stored: caches_embedded :user_list, :compress => true RESPONDS_TO Actions can use Rails' responds_to to provide different behaviours when invoked normally or embedded in another view. class TestController < ApplicationController def user_list responds_to do |format| format.html {render :layout => :application} format.embedded {render :layout => false} end end end SOURCE CODE The official repository for embedded_actions is in GitHub: http://github.com/sd/embedded-actions/tree/master ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Copyright (c) 2007, 2008 Sebastian Delmont <sd@notso.net> Copyright (c) 2007, 2008 StreetEasy / NMD Interactive <http://www.streeteasy.com/> All rights reserved. Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions are met: * Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer. * Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution. * Neither the name of Sebastian Delmont, nor StreetEasy nor NMD Interactive nor the names of their contributors may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software without specific prior written permission. THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND CONTRIBUTORS "AS IS" AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE COPYRIGHT OWNER OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- CONTRIBUTORS - Sebastian Delmont <sd@notso.net> - Jerret Taylor <jerrett@gmail.com> - Ryan Barber <rfb@skyscraper.nu> - Andreas Simon <asimon@med4you.de> - Jonathan Boler <galatians@gmail.com> - Roman Gonzalez <romanandreg@gmail.com> RELEASE HISTORY 1.2 - Apr 28 2011 Compression support 1.1.3 - Mar 24 2009 Fixed issues with content-type leakage Rails 2.3 compatibility 1.1.2 - Dec 5 2008 Simplified responds_to behaviour Rails 2.2 compatibility (Jonathan) 1.1.1 - Feb 20 2008 Allow symbol names for controllers and actions (Andreas) Fixed deprecated 'require_gem' in test environment (Andreas) 1.1 - Dec 4 2007 Passthrough options for fragment caching (Ryan). Support for namespaced controllers in caching (Jerret). Minor bug fixes. 1.0.2 - Nov 29 2007 Fixed bug (thanks Jerret) that caused caching settings to leak to actions with the same name in other controllers. 1.0.1 - Oct 30 2007 Fixed bug that was causing a "Content-encoding: identity" to leak to all requests. 1.0 - Oct 23 2007 First widespread release.
sd/embedded-actions
A Rails plugin that lets you embed actions in your views (with caching and response_to support)
Ruby