view_helpers.textile

---

:title: The TinySite view helpers
:description:

++++body++++

TinySite view helpers

As of version 0.2.1 of TinySite the layout gets rendered in the context of a dedicated view object. To add your own view helpers, just reopen the view class in your config.ru (or any required file).

In the view these methods are available: #request_path, #query_string, #global, #page, #file_url_for, #image_url_for. You can use these directly in the layout or in your own view helpers.

The TinySite documentation app (this app) sports two helpers, more or less as demo for your own helpers: A naive implementation of a navigation renderer and a railsesque link_to helper. They are implemented right in the config.ru:

class TinySite::View
  def link_to(url, name=url, opts={})
    opts, name = name, url if name.is_a? Hash
    
    o = opts.map{|k,v| %Q{ #{k}="#{v}"} }.join
    
    %Q{<a href="#{url}"#{o}>#{name}</a>}
  end
  
  def navigation
    lis = global[:navigation].map do |url,name|
      opts  = {}
      
      opts.update({:class => 'active'}) if request_path==url
      
      %Q{  <li>#{link_to url, name, opts}</li>\n}
    end
    
    %Q{<ul>\n#{lis.join}</ul>\n}
  end
end

The navigation helper renders the YAML navigation of the __global file into an unordered list:

---
:title: TinySite documentation
:navigation:
  /: Home
  /installation_and_usage: Installation and Usage
  /overview: Overview
  /layouts: The layouts
  /page_content: The page content files
  /app: The TinySite app
  /caching: Caching
  /dropbox: Dropbox setup
  /misc: Misc
  /license: License