Some quick Rhodes tips: using helpers

Rhodes allows you to create and use helpers, short methods you typically use to DRY your views. Very much the same as the ones you encounter in Rails. There are a number of caveats though.

Helpers are not loaded automatically

In rails you add a module to app/helpers and it gets loaded automatically. Not so in
rhodes. To use a helper you first have to require the file in your controller.

  require 'helpers/application_helper'

… and include it’s methods into your controller.

  class FooController < Rho::RhoController
    include ApplicationHelper
  end

… only then you will have access to your helper methods from inside your views.

Using helpers on the homepage.

The default homepage is at app/index.erb This view is not managed by a controller therefore you can’t just include your helper methods. Here is a workaround.

First create a separate Rhodes model; it will serve as an alternative homepage.

rhogen model Home name

Note the name property we’re adding. We don’t need it but rhogen requires atleast one property on a model so we’re adding a dummy. C’est la vie.

A bunch of files will be created in app/Home/. You can remove all .erb’s except for the index.erb which will replace the original view at app/index.erb. Similarly you can remove all actions in the controller, except for the index action.

Finally, open up rhoconfig.txt and change the start_path value to ‘app/Home/index’. You can now include your helper functions and use them on the homepage.

Tags: rhodes
Posted in cross-platform development, iphone |