Rails - Aug 2006 - Newbie help re: "dynamic" navigation menu

Hi

I am trying to get my head around how you would "efficiently" do a 
left-hand navigation menu structure derived from various database table 
entries.

Example is loosely based on AWDwR''s depot app.  Say you wanted to 
instead to have the left-hand nav links show the following:
  Books
    book title 1
    book title 2
    ...
  CDs
    CD title 1
    CD title 2
    ...
with the main page area showing a single book or CD info based on what 
was selected in the menu.

The titles in the menu would be generated on the fly by doing d/b finds 
from books and CDs tables.  The links on the titles would go to the 
store controller, with actions like ''show_book'' for books and
''show_cd''
for CDs.

What I am concerned about is wouldn''t each of these methods need to set
instance vars for the collections of book and CD titles each time, so 
the main store view can render the menu? This seems to go against the 
DRY principle and not taking advantage of caching (particularly if the 
titles don''t change much).

I''m sure a different view "hierarchy" and partials or AJAX is
required
to make this work better, but I need some guidance on how to go about 
it.

Cheers,
Karen

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

Look into using fragment caching.  You can cache sections of a page, so you
can keep the content of your page dynamic, while making your menu stay the
same, until you update your list.

On 7/31/06, Karen Jenkin <karenjenkin@yahoo.com>
wrote:
>
> Hi
>
> I am trying to get my head around how you would "efficiently" do
a
> left-hand navigation menu structure derived from various database table
> entries.
>
> Example is loosely based on AWDwR''s depot app.  Say you wanted to
> instead to have the left-hand nav links show the following:
>   Books
>     book title 1
>     book title 2
>     ...
>   CDs
>     CD title 1
>     CD title 2
>     ...
> with the main page area showing a single book or CD info based on what
> was selected in the menu.
>
> The titles in the menu would be generated on the fly by doing d/b finds
> from books and CDs tables.  The links on the titles would go to the
> store controller, with actions like ''show_book'' for books
and ''show_cd''
> for CDs.
>
> What I am concerned about is wouldn''t each of these methods need
to set
> instance vars for the collections of book and CD titles each time, so
> the main store view can render the menu? This seems to go against the
> DRY principle and not taking advantage of caching (particularly if the
> titles don''t change much).
>
> I''m sure a different view "hierarchy" and partials or
AJAX is required
> to make this work better, but I need some guidance on how to go about
> it.
>
> Cheers,
> Karen
>
> --
> Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/.
> _______________________________________________
> Rails mailing list
> Rails@lists.rubyonrails.org
> http://lists.rubyonrails.org/mailman/listinfo/rails
>


-- 
Mike Weber
Web Developer
UW-Eau Claire
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