Layouts or smth similar

[ognevsky]

Hi,

As I know, Rabl don't have any layouts yet. So, the question is: do somebody need this?

[nesquena]

I could see the value for layouts, if there's a certain template all your API's take the form of with a data node or a code node like in instagram's, then I could see this being useful. Personally I haven't had the need for them yet in my own cases.

[ognevsky]

For instance, I have an app and I need some fields to present in each response: it's for layout, I think. Without them I should add some node or code blocks in every partial.

I'll try to code this and pull request, I hope it'll be helpful for somebody.

[nesquena]

Yeah I can definitely see the value, if you send a pull request with specs and it works well for you im happy to pull it in for the next release.

[ognevsky]

Fine, I will pull it soon.

[nesquena]

Thanks

[peterjm]

I'm interested in this functionality, too. @ognevsky, have you made any progress with an implementation?

I've taken a look at the source for Rabl, but I'm not really sure where to start with implementing layout functionality.

[nesquena]

@peterjm @ognevsly #99 Looks like this guy already has layouts working in RABL as it is? I wonder if layouts just work "out of the box" because of Rails template handlers. Try adding a layout for RABL and see if it works

[peterjm]

Thanks, @nesquena. That works for me.

My trouble before was trying to use a .rabl file instead of a .erb file, i.e.

node :data do
  yield
end

Which results in the error "no block given (yield)"

It's a bit of a shame that we need to switch to .erb for the layouts, but hopefully layout files aren't too complicated so it's no major loss. I'm happy enough to move ahead with .erb files.

[nesquena]

Yeah that seems to work for me alright as well, as you said its a shame you need to switch to .erb but in the long run the layouts are fairly simple anyhow. Cheers. Still happy accept a patch for more "complete" support though.

[ognevsky]

@nesquena I made this like extends works, but then I've tried to add new file in views/layouts/application.json.rabl and it works. The main problem was that I don't know, how to display yield.

So, when my layout contains code(:foo) { :bar }, I see it on page and yield holds string (safe string, don't remember how does it call itself) and I couldn't display this.

So, this code above works (it should work, as I see), you can close this issue I think. No need to make layouts as additional code.

• sorry for my English ;)

[nesquena]

No problem, thanks for following up. I agree this is a "good enough" solution. Would anyone be kind enough to help document this approach on the wiki for others? https://github.com/nesquena/rabl/wiki/Using-Layouts @ognevsky @peterjm @cblavier .