Rails - Mar 2006 - Problem rendering components

I have an AccountsController that inherits from ApplicationController. 
In ApplicationController I define a generic layout. In this layout I 
render @title that is actually assigned in the AccountsController but 
has a default value in ApplicationController.

In the layout template, I also have the standard contents_for_layout and 
lastly, I have a render_component. The component called from the layout 
template also renders @title.

The problem I have is that when the requested view renders (e.g. 
/accounts/list), the @title defined in the layout template renders the 
correct value defined in AccountsController. However, the @title defined 
in the components template renders the value defined in 
ApplicationController.

Isnt'' everything supposed to be rendered in the context of the 
controller/action requested?

rhalff commented on the IRC:
rhalff: dsalama, but a component is a controller itself, so it uses that 
context. your component probably extends application controller and you 
didn''t set a title in the component controller itself.

To which I replied:
dsalama: rhalff: you just hit the nail in the head. You are right. A 
component is a controller. From that PoV, it makes sense. However, it 
kind of makes components a little less useful, IMHO. I should be able to 
re-use a component within the context that I want to reuse it in.

Any comments?

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

Hi Daniel,

Interesting point.  But let''s look at this from another perspective
rather than @title.  In your component template, if you access
controller.controller_name or controller.action_name what should you
see?  Since you are in the component controller, I would argue that
you should see things from the perspective of the component
controller.

As well, since components appear to be intended to be isolated siloes
of functionality, having the @title use the @title from it''s parent
context would not use normal OO inheritance, but would use some sort
of runtime context inheritance.  From that perspective it seems a
little difficult to articulate how it would work in all cases (what it
would get from where and when), and increases the coupling between the
component and it''s surroundings.

I had my own issues with components a few days ago that were never
resolved and left me abandoning the use of components.

Could you explain your own situation a bit more to explain why you
want to use the @title from your original controller inside the
component?  It would help me look at my own situation from another
context.

I ask because it appears that people don''t seem to use components.

I was trying to call a component from within another component (a
sidebar with various constituent pieces in the sidebar), but doing
this was causing a ruby core dump for me.  All the IRC and mailing
list questions I posted never got a reply.  It almost appeared that
people aren''t using components, and I was hitting on a relatively
simple bug simply because people don''t use them.  I made a bug report
and haven''t heard anything further.

  http://dev.rubyonrails.org/ticket/4152

Good luck,
  Brad
--
Bradley Mazurek