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Being quite new to rails and currently building a project, i'm begining to be in a situation where my view folder is growing a bit too much

I have for e.g :
/app/
../views/
..../comments/
....../_comment.html.erb
....../_comments_count.html.erb
....../_form.html.erb
....../create.js.erb
....../destroy.js.erb
....../edit.html.erb
....../edit.js.erb
....../index.html.erb
....../index.js.erb
....../new.html.erb
....../show.html.erb
....../update.js.erb

I would definitely prefer to have 2 files :
comments.html.erb
comments.js.erb

And inside of each (like in controller) have a part for each actions.

Currently it seems too much trouble to edit each files, even if they are skinny.

How do you manage your view files ? Is my comments view folder "normal" for a rails project ? Is there some templates engine like handlebar that can help address this problem ?

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3 Answers 3

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This is a bad idea. Rails splits up actions into different views so that everything is modular and more easily maintained. There is no way to simply combine everything into a monolithic file and call the parts you want on a per-action basis; that's the point of your controller.

If you're having a hard time editing different files, I wouldn't say that's a problem with Rails behavior but with your development environment. Many IDEs and editors have features or plugins that assist the process of dealing with many files. However, your case is pretty standard for a CRUD view.

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3 Comments

Agree. I'll add that while you're doing feature development it might be a pain to have so many files, but one day when you're trying to debug something and you can focus on just the little part of your app that's broken, you'll appreciate the separation.
In terms of IDE's, I suggest RubyMine, jetbrains.com/ruby. Best tool I've seen.
Thanks for the reply, i choosed yours as accepted because of the modular and easily maintained part which i think explain correctly why rails is built that way
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In rails 3.1 and beyond, JS files go in the assets/javascripts folder for use in the assets pipeline...which if I read between the lines you'd probably like even less. But aside from that, this looks pretty normal.

Having too much in one file violates the Single Responsibility Principle. Each file should have only one reason to change.

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5 Comments

Even the specific controller js ? I puted them there so that when my controller call update action, the specific update javascipt is executed. Is it possible to have that behavior with js file in assets/javascript ?
Yes. If you name them like the controller comments.js...they can get auto included on everything that happens in that controller.
But if i want the update.js.erb file to be executed only after the update action from controller is executed ? Not for each controller action ?
Add a specific call that JS using <%= javascript_include_tag "controllername_update" %>
.js.erb files aren't the same as asset files -- they're specifically called by Rails after rendering an action.
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I agree with @rpedroso. Rails sets up these things for a reason. You can choose to disagree with the reason and do it differently; presumably you have a deep understanding of the system and the tradeoffs involved. But doing things differently without knowing the reason is just careless. Rails is so popular because it lays down easy-to-follow conventions which are strongly recommended, because everybody knows what they are and can speak the same language with you. Disregard the conventions at your own peril.

I recommend Michael Hartl's Rails Tutorial as a wonderful intro to Rails.

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Thanks for the reply, if i ask the question, it is of course to understand rails conventions and follow them

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