Ruby on Rails Generating Views

Is there a way to generate the views separately using the rails generate command? I would also be willing to install a gem to accomplish that task f one exists. Basically the scaffolding command gives me too much and I would rather code my controller by hand. However, writing the index view with a table for the records would not be very efficient.

You can generate the controller and the view using the controller generator.

rails g controller controllername new create

This will create actions new and create with their corresponding views.

You still need to set up your routes manually with this.

One particular situation is when you want to add a new view to an existing controller.

In that case, just use the regular command, but be careful to say 'n' every time prompted in order to not overwrite existing files.

For example, adding a view called 'invite' to an existing controller named 'projects':

smith@ubuntuSrv16DEV4:~/railsapps/project_manager$ rails -v
Rails 5.1.4
smith@ubuntuSrv16DEV4:~/railsapps/project_manager$ rails generate controller projects invite
Running via Spring preloader in process 46253
    conflict  app/controllers/projects_controller.rb
Overwrite /home/smith/railsapps/project_manager/app/controllers/projects_controller.rb? (enter "h" for help) [Ynaqdh] n
        skip  app/controllers/projects_controller.rb
       route  get 'projects/invite'
      invoke  erb
       exist    app/views/projects
      create    app/views/projects/invite.html.erb
      invoke  test_unit
    conflict    test/controllers/projects_controller_test.rb
  Overwrite /home/smith/railsapps/project_manager/test/controllers/projects_controller_test.rb? (enter "h" for help) [Ynaqdh] n
        skip    test/controllers/projects_controller_test.rb
      invoke  helper
   identical    app/helpers/projects_helper.rb
      invoke    test_unit
      invoke  assets
      invoke    coffee
   identical      app/assets/javascripts/projects.coffee
      invoke    scss
    conflict      app/assets/stylesheets/projects.scss
    Overwrite /home/smith/railsapps/project_manager/app/assets/stylesheets/projects.scss? (enter "h" for help) [Ynaqdh] n
        skip      app/assets/stylesheets/projects.scss
smith@ubuntuSrv16DEV4:~/railsapps/project_manager$ 

the first part is the name of the model/controller, the second part are the actions.

As previously mentioned by sameers there was post that showed how to just generate a the views. It will create all the views for your model using the rails default templates which is very handy.

If like me you want something a little more customizable you can achieve the following.

You can create your own generator so you have something like this.

rails generate view NAME VIEW [options]

To achieve this you need to do the following.

rails generate generator view

This will generate a few files for you in lib/generators/view/ folder.

Open the view_generator.rb file and add the following code.

class ViewGenerator < Rails::Generators::Base
  source_root File.expand_path('templates', __dir__)
  argument :name, type: :string
  argument :action, type: :string

  def generate_view
  	template "#{file_name}.html.erb", "app/views/#{folder_name}/#{file_name}.html.erb"
  end

  private

  def folder_name
  	name.underscore
  end

  def file_name
  	action.underscore
  end

  def type
  	name.titleize.singularize
  end

  def down_type
    name.downcase.singularize
  end

  def render_form
    "<%= render 'form', #{down_type}: @#{down_type} %>"
  end

  def render_link_back
    "<%= link_to 'Back', #{folder_name}_path %>"
  end
end</pre>

Next you need to create the file that we are using actual template used in generate_view method.

Using the action new as example, create a filelib/generators/view/new.html.erb and add the following.

<h1>New <%= type %></h1>

<%= render_form %>

<%= render_link_back %>

Customize the template view as much as you want. You will need to add the _form.html.erb as well. Add any additional variables and logic in your view_generator.rb file and you are done.

It's more work but can be worth it if you find yourself generating similar views all the time.

Best use case I can think of for this approach is if you white label your platform and need to generate multiple files for a clients profile.