The Book of Ryan

One thing I love about being a Rails hobbyist is that I can continually think about the best way to do things. With no paycheck hinging on a deliverable, I can refactor continuously until I’m convinced I have the best code I can muster. Sure, I never get anything done, but the exercise makes me a better programmer.

I mentioned previously how to set up an EVE Online-focused rails site. After reading through old Riding Rails posts, I noticed this excellent post on iPhone-optimising your rails project. This process is almost exactly the same for sharing views between EVE and a normal browser. In Rails 2.0 all you have to do is register the MIME Type.

config/initializers/mime_types.rb:

Mime::Type.register_alias "text/html", :eve

Then, in your application controller, use a before_filter to adjust the format as necessary.

app/controllers/application_controller.rb:

before_filter :isolate_eve_browser

private
  # EVE-specific data
  def isolate_eve_browser
    if eve?
      request.format = :eve
      request_trust unless trusted?
      end
    end
  end

Now everywhere you want to separate your EVE views from your standard browser views, simply use respond_to.

app/controllers/home_controller.rb:

class HomeController < ApplicationController
  def index
    respond_to do |format|
      format.html
      format.eve
    end
  end  
end

You can then use app/views/home/index.html.erb and app/views/home/index.eve.erb respectively. This means you can also request trust on the appliaction level instead of on the action level as I mentioned previously. Notice that request_trust method above? It should look something like:

app/controllers/application_controller.rb:

private
  def request_trust
    response.headers["eve.trustme"] = (
      "http://#{request.env['HTTP_HOST']}/" +
      "::Your custom message begging for trust."
    )
    render :template => 'trust_me'
  end

The action is rounded out by creating app/views/trustme.eve.erb, which is the template rendered above when the user declines to trust you. Happy coding!