Title: Rails Theme
Author: paulrosen
Published: November 29, 2011
Last modified: May 31, 2013
---
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This plugin **hasn’t been tested with the latest 3 major releases of WordPress**.
It may no longer be maintained or supported and may have compatibility issues when
used with more recent versions of WordPress.
# Rails Theme
By [paulrosen](https://profiles.wordpress.org/paulrosen/)
[Download](https://downloads.wordpress.org/plugin/rails-theme.zip)
* [Details](https://wordpress.org/plugins/rails-theme/#description)
* [Reviews](https://wordpress.org/plugins/rails-theme/#reviews)
* [Installation](https://wordpress.org/plugins/rails-theme/#installation)
* [Development](https://wordpress.org/plugins/rails-theme/#developers)
[Support](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/rails-theme/)
## Description
This calls back to a web service to get theme information, so that it is easy to
keep the rails and WP sides in sync.
It is designed to be used when a Rails application wishes to contain WordPress content.
This allows the WordPress pages
to directly use the styles of the Rails application
so that it will always match, even when the Rails app changes.
It is also useful when the header of the page changes, for instance, if new menu
items can appear depending on the state of the
application.
And finally, if you want to POST back to the Rails app (for instance, to log in),
you need the CSRF to be set in the page’s header,
and that needs to come from the
Rails session.
NOTE: This might take some tweaking depending on the theme you are using. It successfully
works with the default 2011 theme
and the Hybrid theme.
It requires an entry point in your Rails controller that returns three things:
1. a section that is put in the header to load stylesheets and javascript, 1. a
section that is loaded at the top of the body, and 1. a section that is loaded at
the bottom of the body.
There is one main option in the plugin to tell it the base URL of the Rails app.
The rails app is expected to respond to the
following URL:
```
/wrapper
```
This also supplies a convenience option to add classes to the so that you can match
the body styles in your rails app.
### Troubleshooting
1. My theme doesn’t show up at all.
Turn on WP_DEBUG in wp_config.php and see if there is an error message printed to
the page.
## Screenshots
* [[
* This is the options page.
## Installation
The plugin itself is easy to install.
1. Upload this folder to the `/wp-content/plugins/` directory.
2. Activate the plugin through the ‘Plugins’ menu in WordPress.
3. Click ‘Settings’ in the dashboard, then ‘Rails Theme’ and enter the base URL for
your Rails app.
There are a number of things that have to happen on the Rails side, though.
You will need something like the following in your routes.rb file:
```
get "/wrapper" => "home#wrapper"
```
And it should return a partial with three sections. The sections should be separated
from each other with 10 tildes (that
is: `~~~~~~~~~~`).
It is most convenient to rearrange your layout file to call those three partials.
Here is a possible layout file:
```
<%= render :partial => '/layouts/dependencies' %>
Site Title
<%= render :partial => '/layouts/header' %>
<%= yield %>
<%= render :partial => '/layouts/footer' %>
```
Notice that all the work is done by those three partials.
Then, the wrapper call is handled like this:
* home_controller:
def wrapper render :partial => “/layouts/wrapper” end
* layouts/_wrapper.html.erb:
“/layouts/dependencies” %> “/layouts/any_session_related_tasks%
>
* ```
<%= render :partial => "/layouts/header" %>
```
* “/layouts/footer” %>
You will have to be careful about the css classes you create so that they don’t
conflict with the WP theme’s classes.
For instance, you probably don’t want a class
named ‘content’.
You will also probably have to tweak the css in your layout some to override some
of your theme. In the case of the
2011 theme, I had to put in the following:
```
/* for wordpress */
#body-container {
margin: 0;
}
#header-container {
display:none;
}
```
The big problem with making this seamless is that WP can’t use the session data
from the Rails app. Typically in
my apps, this means that I don’t know how to draw
the “sign in” section because I can’t tell if the user is logged in. To get around
that, the sign in section should be drawn as if there is no one logged in, then
an ajax call made from the Rails app to correct that. That is what should go in
the `any_session_related_tasks` partial above: some javascript that triggers at `
onload` time that returns the sign in div.
## FAQ
How do I get rails to ignore the WP’s PHP?
If you are using Passenger and Apache, put this in your conf file (assuming you
want the WordPress site to be accessible
through `/news`):
```
PassengerEnabled off
AllowOverride all
```
How do I get the URL for the WP blog look like the URLs for my Rails app?
If you create a symbolic link in your public folder to the wp site, then you can
use the URL /news to get to your blog:
```
cd path/to/rails/app/public
ln -s /path/to/wordpress/installation news
```
## Reviews
There are no reviews for this plugin.
## Contributors & Developers
“Rails Theme” is open source software. The following people have contributed to
this plugin.
Contributors
* [ paulrosen ](https://profiles.wordpress.org/paulrosen/)
[Translate “Rails Theme” into your language.](https://translate.wordpress.org/projects/wp-plugins/rails-theme)
### Interested in development?
[Browse the code](https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/rails-theme/), check
out the [SVN repository](https://plugins.svn.wordpress.org/rails-theme/), or subscribe
to the [development log](https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/log/rails-theme/) by
[RSS](https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/log/rails-theme/?limit=100&mode=stop_on_copy&format=rss).
## Changelog
#### 1.1.1.0
* Retry the call to rails, since the rails app or the network might be slow.
#### 1.1.0.0
* Added the option to add classes to .
#### 1.0.3.0
* Removing the pass through of cookies, since later versions of Rails invalidates
the session when it sees the cookie
coming from the wrong place.
#### 1.0.2.0
* Using WP_Http to make the server call to work in more configurations.
* Improved error reporting.
#### 1.0.1.0
* Pass the page’s cookies through to the rails app.
#### 1.0
* Initial release.
## Meta
* Version **1.1.1.0**
* Last updated **13 years ago**
* Active installations **10+**
* WordPress version ** 3.2 or higher **
* Tested up to **3.5.2**
* Tags
* [rails](https://wordpress.org/plugins/tags/rails/)[theme](https://wordpress.org/plugins/tags/theme/)
* [Advanced View](https://wordpress.org/plugins/rails-theme/advanced/)
## Ratings
No reviews have been submitted yet.
[Your review](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/rails-theme/reviews/#new-post)
[See all reviews](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/rails-theme/reviews/)
## Contributors
* [ paulrosen ](https://profiles.wordpress.org/paulrosen/)
## Support
Got something to say? Need help?
[View support forum](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/rails-theme/)
## Donate
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[ Donate to this plugin ](http://www.performantsoftware.com/wordpress/plugins/rails_theme/)