Overall Review

I actually learned a few new tips and tricks from this book. It was nice to read a book that's mainly focused on the view end of Rails. And I was surprised by the amount of things I learned since I didn't really know there was that much to talk about for views. However, the book did go in a bit of a tangent regarding Sass (I am biased though since I already knew the syntax before reading this book). Overall I would definitely recommend this book! Go check out their website and the rules they have on Rails view layer.

Chapter 1

• If you don't specify the folder in the partial file name, Rails will look for the file in the current controller’s view directory
• Use yield :sidebar, content_for :sidebar do, and content_for?(:sidebar) to allow content in the view to hook into the layout.
• There is a nifty solution for how to handle navigation in Rails. Put nav in a partial that uses content_for. Then, use a helper method to render this partial with a local variable dictating what the current page is:

def currently_at(tab)
  render partial: 'layouts/main_nav', locals: {current_tab: tab}
end

• flash[:notice], flash[:alert] and the corresponding alert, and notice helper methods.
• ie_conditional_tag gem

Chapter 2

• raw method (similar to html_safe), link_to, image_tag, number_to_currency, number_to_human_size
• Use this to avoid putting law of demeter solution in model and avoid being tied to having @creation present (it's a default parameter):

def creation_client_name(creation = @creation)
  creation.project.client.name
end

• Use this to render collections so that the html for an item is abstracted away as well as the iteration (which should be Rails responsibility):

<%= render @creations %>

• Move if/elsif/else clause into separate partials and a helper that renders the correct partial:

<%= controls_for_creation(creation) %>

• extract long conditions to method_name? helpers. You can even yield in that method so that it can take a block of html
• Use content_tag_for when attributes become complex (use dom_id)

Chapter 3

• sprockets looks in these folders: app/assets for application code, lib/assets for code used in several projects, vendor/assets for 3rd party code
• directives: require_tree to require a directory recursively and alphabetically, require_self for the file itself
• rails runner "y Rails.configuration.assets.paths" to see where sprocket finds the files
• Use require when you just want to shove content together and @import when you want to use the definitions present in the dependency in the current file
• asset-path and image-path Sass functions
• sprites (use compass)
• @font-face css declaration
• stylesheet_link_tag

Chapter 4

• javascript_include_tag (include_js)
• jquery_ujs
  • confirm parameter to link_to
  • remote parameter to a form (render a js partial)
• j/escape_javascript method

Chapter 5

• form_for (multipart option), text_field, label, file_field, submit, form_tag
• html fieldsets
• tabindex for tabbing order
• optgroup for grouping options. Pass an array of arrays to select_tag
• autofocus (html5)
• Rails automatically wraps div with field_with_errors
• form builder error_messages method (https://github.com/joelmoss/dynamic_form)
• fields_for
• ActionView::Helpers::FormBuilder You can subclass this to add methods to the form builder object. Ex:

def field_item(attribute, text = nil, &block)
  @template.content_tag :li do
    @template.concat @template.label(attribute, text)
    yield
  end
end

pass builder paramter to form_for

• input tag has new type options from html5

Chapter 6

• Make a presenter object and an associating helper method. Use a block so that the presenter object is yielded instead of assigning a variable for the presenter.
• We pass along the presenter instance using the :object option, which will make sure it's assigned to a variable with the same name as the partial (in this case, status). This allows the partial to call methods on this object directly
• We can make presenters render itself. Pass self to the presenter (self is the template object). Then add a to_s that renders the partial corresponding to the presenter
• test that the presenter returns correct values, helper returns presenter and that the to_s has some correct markup, controller has some correct markup
• Interesting syntax here:

@columns.each_with_object({}) do |(title, attribute), memo|

Chapter 7

• request.format = :mobile to create mobile version views (register mime type with Rails)
• Allow users to override the agent query
• link_to_unless
• jQuery Mobile

Chapter 8

• ActionMailer
• Use ASCII characters for text version of emails and provide a link to view the email
• letter_opener gem

Chapter 9

• A/B testing with Vanity
• Deadweight gem