[Cells-talk] RFC: introducing a #render method in Cells?

[Nick Sutterer]

hey you guys out there,

this list is very low-traffic ATM, i hope this means cells is as
stable as you expect it to be and the docs do not leave a single
question unanswered ;-)

i was thinking about introducing a new method #render which can be
called in cell states.
providing no arguments as

  def my_state
    # ... do something

    render
  end

would just expose the same behaviour as returning nil.

however, it would accept the following options:

def another_state
    # ... do something meaningful

    render  :layout           => 'metal',
            :template_format  => :html,
            :view             => 'another_view'
  end

providing support for
- layouts for cells
- a template format different to "html" (not possible currently)
- rendering a freely choosable view from the cell, not being tied to
the state name

i'd love to hear your feedback, just briefly
- is this confusing- having a #render method with a DIFFERENT api than
ActionController#render ?
- if yes, what could the method name be?
- did you already miss one or more these new features in the current version?
- would you expect #render to render a :partial as well? (that
wouldn't make any sense at all, would it?)

thanks and cheers,
nick