From: ritchie <ritchie@...>
Date: 2005-04-12T03:24:41+09:00
Subject: rails use case

Hi there, I'm new to rails, started today really, and am wondering how
to shoehorn my existing php setup into it.

I have non-programmers, trusted content editors, who need to edit a
standard hierarchy of html with possibly embedded ruby by me, they do
so every day by ftp etc. It seems wrong for them to have access to the
views directory or any non public rails dir. So, one solution, which is
close to my current php solution, is to have a controller which loads
(r)html from the public directory, does any necessary substitutions
etc. This seems straight forward, e.g.

http://localhost:3000/mydispatchcontroller?path=/public/mydir/index.rhtml

However, it would seem a good idea to use the rails existing caching
system etc and the general infrastructure, is this possible for rhtml
outside the views dirs? Or is this kind of much more free format
application structure a bad fit  for rails? Free format in the sense
that the users could add new directories and content to the public
dirs, for me to fill out with specific programmatic stuff at a later
date. Really, I'd like views to be added dynamically and hierarchically
organised within a public dir?? What are the possibilities?

Thanks

Ritchie