Rails - May 2006 - Nooby partials / component problems

I''m stumped on what seems like should be a fairly easy thing, so I  
hope someone can point out my error.

I wanted to show a few things on every page, so I added an  
application level template in "layouts". I added my styles in there,  
and put the controller name and action name into the TITLE tag for my  
own reference. So far so good - works like expected. Then I wanted to  
show some info looked up in the DB based on session variables, so I  
added a method to do that on one of my controllers, and added

<% render_component :controller => ''user'', :action =>
''identity'' %>

to my application level template. Now when I call this action  
directly via http://localhost:3000/user/identity I get just what I  
expect, but nothing shows up via the template reference. I know its  
being called, because if I introduce an error into that action, the  
template gets that error, but when it works - nothing comes out in  
the web page from that component. The rest of the template continues  
to work the same as always - styles in HEAD, the content_for_layout,  
etc. are all there like normal - its just like the render_component  
has no effect unless there''s an error in it.

So then I decided to try using a partial, since it seemed a little  
more "foolproof", and somewhat  based on the mention in AWDR v2 that  
components are not as favored. So I added:

<% render :partial => ''shared/footer'' %>

to my application level template and just added some plain ole hard- 
coded HTML in views/shared/_footer.rhtml

Weirdly, nothing comes out in my template. It seems that the file  
_footer.rhtml is being referenced, because I get the dreaded white  
screen if the file isn''t there, and if I put a Ruby error into the  
partial, I get that error when I reference the page. However, just  
like the component above, so long as its working, its like it doesn''t  
exist.

So what the heck am I missing here?  I''ve been over p. 116-120 in  
AWDR about a zillion times. It seems pretty simple, yet I''m stumped.

I''m using:
ruby 1.8.4 (2005-12-24) [powerpc-darwin8.4.0]
Rails 1.1.2
org.radrails.rails_feature, Version: 0.6.3

Thanks,
Steve

Steven Rogers wrote:
> I''m stumped on what seems like should be a fairly easy thing, so I
hope
> someone can point out my error.
> 
> I added a method to 
> do that on one of my controllers, and added
> 
> <% render_component :controller => ''user'', :action
=> ''identity'' %>
> 
> to my application level template. 
This should be:

<%= render_component :controller => ''user'', :action
=> ''identity'' %>

note the "="

If you use the <% %> form, the code inside is executed, but not 
displayed. If you use <%= %> then the result of executing the code is 
added to the output string.

-- 

Ray

On May 21, 2006, at 8:38 PM, rails-request@lists.rubyonrails.org wrote:
> From: Ray Baxter <ray@warmroom.com>
>
> Steven Rogers wrote:
>
>> I''m stumped on what seems like should be a fairly easy thing,
so I
>> hope
>> someone can point out my error.
>>
>> I added a method to
>> do that on one of my controllers, and added
>>
>> <% render_component :controller => ''user'',
:action => ''identity'' %>
>>
>> to my application level template.
>
> This should be:
>
> <%= render_component :controller => ''user'', :action
=> ''identity'' %>
>
> note the "="
>
> If you use the <% %> form, the code inside is executed, but not
> displayed. If you use <%= %> then the result of executing the code is
> added to the output string.
Whew - thanks. That was bloody obvious, but I sure couldn''t see it.

Thanks,
SR