RoR: View and Controller subdirectories?

Question

I'm trying to use this technique (http://blog.hasmanythrough.com/2008/4/2/simple-pages) on "boiler-plate" pages I want to keep in a subdirectory of my controller's view folder.

How would I do this? The below doesn't seem to work: returns a "Template missing" error.

Error:

Missing template home/New_York_apartments.erb in view path app/views

---

/app
  /controllers
    home_controller.rb
    /old_pages
      home_controller.rb
  /views
    /home
      about.html.haml
      contact.html.haml
      index.html.haml
      /old_pages
        New_York_apartments.html.haml

routes.rb

map.namespace :old_pages do
  map.connect ':page', :controller => 'home', :action => 'show', :page => HomeController::PAGES 
end
map.home ':page', :controller => 'home', :action => 'show', :page => HomeController::PAGES

controllers/home_controller.rb

class HomeController < ApplicationController

  # boiler-plate pages
  PAGES = ['about','contact'] 

  def index
    # homepage
  end

  def show
    render :action => params[:page] # passed in our routes
  end

end

controllers/old_pages/home_controller.rb

class OldPages::HomeController < ApplicationController

  # boiler-plate pages
  PAGES = [
    'New_York_apartments' # apprently something to do with new york apartments; who knows
  ]

  def show
    render :action => params[:page] # passed in our routes
  end

end

Answer 1

Alright, found a solution. I traded a slightly more bloated main home_controller.rb for a cleaner controllers directory and routes file, which considering these pages will eventually be eliminated (the ones in the subdirectory), I thought was a fair compromise.

Edited files reproduced below:

---

/app
  /controllers
    home_controller.rb
  /views
    /home
      about.html.haml
      contact.html.haml
      index.html.haml
      /old_pages
        New_York_apartments.html.haml

routes.rb:

  # custom routes
  map.root :controller => 'home', :action => 'index' # root page
  map.home ':page', :controller => 'home', :action => 'show', :page => HomeController::PAGES # boiler-plate pages
  map.connect ':page.html', :controller => 'home', :action => 'show_old_pages', :page => HomeController::OLD_PAGES  # old static pages; only here to make the transition

controllers/home_controller.rb:

class HomeController < ApplicationController

  def index
    # homepage
  end

  def show
    render :action => params[:page] # passed in our routes
  end

  def show_old_pages
    render :action => "old_pages/#{params[:page]}"
  end

  #### boiler-plate pages ####

  PAGES = [
    'about',
    'contact'
  ]

  OLD_PAGES = [
    'New_York_apartments' # apprently something to do with new york apartments; who knows
  ]

end

Answer 2

Here is the source of your problem:

map.namespace :old_pages do
  map.connect ':page', :controller => 'home', :action => 'show', :page => HomeController::PAGES 
end

This tells Rails to prefix oldpages/ to any path it needs to look up. The controller will be at app/controllers/old_pages/home_controller and respond to urls that start with /old_pages/home. And it's expecting the views to be in app/views/old_pages/home/. Your directory layout places views at app/views/old_pages/home

No matter how you choose to solve this problem you're going to be moving files around, and possibly editing others.

Least Effort Solution: Rename your current app/views/home/old_pages directory to app/views/old_pages/home. If you're migrating your entire site and want to keep the current version around for stubborn users this is the best way to do it.