Rails Theme Support Plugin v 1.4

I've just checked in version 1.4 of the theme_support plugin. It contains quite a few bugfixes and updates. This version also integrates a couple of patches from akg and D.J. Vogel. Thanks guys!

Version 1.4 adds:

• Bugfixes, of course
• Better Rails 1.1 support
• ActionMailer theme support (experimental)
• Updates to the themeitem liquid tag
• Support for theme sub-directories
• Fleshed out the Theme object to make is easy to list all of the installed Themes

As a little background, the plugin is based on the theme system developed by the Typo guys and adds support for:

• Multiple concurrent themes
• A rails generator for creating a theme folder structure
• Rake tasks for pre-caching all of the themes for increased security and performance
• Overriding views with theme-specific rhtml or liquid templates (based on early Typo code)
• Forcing theme views to only allow liquid templates
• Made supporting themes as easy as using layouts

To install the plugin, go to your rails application root folder and run:

  ./script/plugin install http://mattmccray.com/svn/rails/plugins/theme_support

or, for you Windows folks:

  ruby script\\plugin install http://mattmccray.com/svn/rails/plugins/theme_support

Look at the README in $/vendor/plugins/theme_support for more on implementing themes in your application.

More Zebras

Update: OK, you got me. You should really use the built-in Rails helper, cycle.

<table class="Grid">
 <% for user in @users %>
  <tr class="<%= cycle('Even', 'Odd') %>">
    <td>
      ... Stuff Here
    </td>
  </tr>
 <% end %>
</table>

Here's the helper I've been using lately for zebra striping table rows:

def zebra_stripe( index, even_class="Even", odd_class="Odd" )
  index % 2 == 0 ? even_class : odd_class
end

In the view, you use the rubyesque .each_with_index like this:

<table class="Grid">
<% @users.each_with_index do |user, i| %>
  <tr class="<%= zebra_stripe(i) %>">
    <td>
      ... Stuff Here
    </td>
  </tr>
<% end %>
</table>

Simple as that!