Rails - Jan 2006 - learning how models, controllers, and views pass data

As a noob to Rails and web development in general, I think I still need
a broader understanding of how Views, Controllers, and Models pass
information and variables to each other.

I''m creating a site that allows for email campaigns.  I have a
''create_email_controller'':

class Admin::CreateEmailController < Admin::BaseController
	layout ''admin''
  def index
    write
    render :action => ''write''
  end

  def write
    @email = Email.new
  end

  def email_list
 	 email = Email.find(:all)
 	 email.each { |address| MailList::deliver_send_email(address) }
 	 redirect_to (:action => @section)
  end

end

where I want the user to type a message body into a textarea field:

<%= error_messages_for ''email'' %>

<!--[form:email]-->
<p><label
for="email_message">Message</label><br/>
<%= text_area ''email'', ''message'' 
%></p>

<!--[eoform:email]-->

I want to pass from the form a variable @message to email_list in the
controller, which passes to the MailList model:

class MailList < ActionMailer::Base
	def send_email(email)
		@recipients = email.address
		@from = ''info@toropaintballs.com''
		@subject = ''Toro Paintball''
		@body[''full_name''] = email.fullname
                ## @message in here someway ##
	end
end

which invokes the view send_email.rhtml:

Dear <%= @full_name %>,

<%= @message %>

Hope this isn''t way too long winded, but is this completely simple to
do
without having to store @message as a session variable or in the DB?
Can I just take the value of the textarea, pass it through the
controllers and model to the view like this?

-- 
Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/.

In your controller, you can get the message variable with something like
this :

params[:message]

More generally, params holds all your form''s variables

-- 
Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/.