layout

Function to Determine Layout

Sometimes its nice to have different layouts choosen automagicly:

class ApplicationController < ActionController::Base
 layout :determine_layout
 def determine_layout
   if is_admin?
     "admin"
   else
     "application"
   end
...
end

Turn layout off

If you don’t want a layout rendered, just put:

layout nil

in your controller.

Required Reading

The details for using layout (such as possible values for the conditions hash) can be found in ActionController::Layout::ClassMethods.

Turn layout off with render

Thats awkward, but the code below does not turn layout off:

render :action => "short_goal", :layout => nil

you must use false

render :action => "short_goal", :layout => false

Caveat when using dynamic layouts

Worth noting that if you have a controller which inherits from another controller which has a layout, and in this child controller you’re determining the layout at runtime using a method for specific actions, the other actions you are excluding will not inherit the layout from the parent controller.

For example, if you’ve got this

class BaseController < ApplicationController
  layout "public"
end
class OrdersController < BaseController
  layout :determine_layout, :only => :new
  # index, show, new, create, edit, update, destroy ...
end

then OrdersController#index, #show, and #edit won’t get the “public” layout – in fact they won’t get a layout at all. So you’ll need to do this instead:

class OrdersController < BaseController
  layout :determine_layout, :only => :new
  layout "public", :except => :new
  # ...
end

Re: Caveat when using dynamic layouts

Since there’s no way to edit posts on here, I need to correct myself and say that what I posted before doesn’t work, since you can’t specify layout multiple times:

class OrdersController < BaseController
  layout :determine_layout, :only => :new
  layout "public", :except => :new
  # ...
end

So don’t do that. The only way to ensure that the other actions get the default theme is to drop :only/:except and do the conditions yourself:

class OrdersController < BaseController
  layout :determine_layout

private
  def determine_layout
    %w(new).include?(action_name) ? "some_layout" : "public"
  end
end

All this to say, beware of :only/:except – they aren’t as useful as you think they are.

Using a specific layout

To choose the layout (or no layout) for a method call the render method with a :layout option.

Disable layout on ajax

In actions that may or may not be loaded via ajax I use:

render :layout => !request.xhr?

For an entire controller I might use something like:

layout :has_layout?

private
  def has_layout?
    request.xhr? ? false : controller_name
  end

What seems unusual is that

layout true

will try look for the layout true.erb