From: Wendy Putler <signup@...>
Date: 2006-09-13T11:55:05+09:00
Subject: Noob ?: application design

I am trying to write my first ruby on rails app and I am having a little 
trouble with the design.  I can see 2 ways to do it , but I'm sure that 
I'm not entirely understanding the whole controller/action/layout/view 
thing and want to get opinions on the best approach.

my database has 4 tables:  1) entries, which has many:  2) addresses, 3) 
contacts, 4) people

The first part of my application is to present a user with the options 
necessary to manage their own entries.  The menu looks like:

My Entry
    people
    addresses
    contacts (note: these are email addresses and phone numbers)

I created a controller called "listing" and was going to use its layout 
to present all the different data.  My choices seem to be:

    a) pull the data into the listing's view by making a 
"view/listing/contact.html" and having "contact" as an action in the 
"listing" controller

    b) have the listing controller refer back to the other controllers 
so clicking on contacts would refer to "contacts/list.html"

Choice (b) seems to be the better way to go, but I don't want to put the 
listing layout as the default for the contacts controller because it 
will be presented different ways eventually.

Thanks for any guidance.
/Wendy