Know nothing about Ruby, can't modify files on a website (index.html.erb??!)

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September 15th, 2010, 09:47 PM

77huntley

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Know nothing about Ruby, can't modify files on a website (index.html.erb??!)

Hello,

I'm really confused. I know basic html, unix, php, few other things.
I need to add META tags for a friend, different tags on every page of his site.

Got into his FTP and his directory structure just boggled me.
He runs nginx.

After much searching I found all the files I needed with .erb extensions appended to them. There's a gems folder, so I'm guessing Ruby is involved.
When I go to ..../sitename_main/stable/app/views/main/ (damn that's deep in the tree!)

I find files like index.html.erb.
So I decided to try to edit these to add meta tags.
Didn't work.. the <title> and <head> area's of the page aren't changeable from there, the index.html.erb file just starts with:

Code:

<body id="index"> 
<div class="full_page">
    <div class="main_cont">
      <div class="top_banner">
        <%= render :partial => "main/top_ban" %>
      </div>
      <div class="index_images">
        <img id="ban_1" src="images/index_banner.jpg"  width="936px"  height="290px" style="opacity: 0;"/>
        <img id="ban_2" src="images/index_banner2.jpg"  width="936px" height="290px" style="opacity: 0;"/>
        <img id="ban_3" src="images/index_banner3.jpg"  width="936px" height="290px" style="opacity: 0;"/>
        <img id="ban_4" src="images/index_banner4.jpg"  width="936px" height="290px" style="opacity: 0;"/>
        <img id="ban_5" src="images/index_banner5.jpg"  width="936px" height="290px" style="opacity: 0;"/>
      </div>
      <div class="top_menu">
      ........
      ........

........

How to I add meta tags (and titles) to each individual page?

Any help would be appreciated, thanks guys!!

September 16th, 2010, 05:58 AM

L7Sqr

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This sounds a lot like a Rails setup. Rails uses ERB (Ruby templating mechanism) extensively.

If you need to edit the head/title portions of the eventual file maybe you can look for the inclusion of that file you show in other sources. This is entirely a shot in the dark as I am unaware of your setup and dont know diddly about the inner workings of Rails. Consider the following

Code:

 $ cat foo.rb
#!/usr/bin/env ruby
puts "In Foo"
require 'bar.rb'

$ cat bar.rb
puts "Bar included"

$ ruby foo.rb
In Foo
Bar included

So you might have some success if you grep for something like

Code:

egrep -Rn "require index.html.erb"

Though, you may have more consistent reqults if you just read up on how Rails works and edit things the ways they suggest

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September 21st, 2010, 04:10 AM

Trackno

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Is there advantages of Ruby compared to php? Don't know would it be profitable for me to learn it

September 21st, 2010, 09:23 AM

Scorpions4ever

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Most likely, the code is using a template. What you need to do is look here:

/sitename_main/stable/app/views/layouts

and see if there is a file here that has <html><head>...

Then, all you have to do is modify this file and make it accept parameters from the controller:
e.g.

Code:

<title><%= @title %> - My Site Name</title>
<meta name="keywords" content="<%= @meta_keywords %>" />
<meta name="description" content="<%= @meta_description %>" />

and then modify your controller file (which should be /sitename_main/stable/app/controllers/main.rb) and add the following into the different functions here:

Code:

@title = "Custom title"
@meta_keywords = "Something, something else"
@meta_description = "Fee fie fo fum"

You can modify the controller so that @title, @meta_keywords and @meta_description have a default value and then override in specific functions.

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October 13th, 2010, 09:07 AM

andolasoft

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ruby is a pure object oriented language

As compared to php, ruby is a pure Object oriented language. ruby possesses many metaprogramming attributes which can be used in rails development.

October 15th, 2010, 05:51 PM

orvn

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Hello! I had to re-register with a new username, as I was having problems with my old email account., I'm the same user who started this thread though.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Scorpions4ever

Code:

<title><%= @title %> - My Site Name</title>
<meta name="keywords" content="<%= @meta_keywords %>" />
<meta name="description" content="<%= @meta_description %>" />

and then modify your controller file (which should be /sitename_main/stable/app/controllers/main.rb) and add the following into the different functions here:

Code:

@title = "Custom title"
@meta_keywords = "Something, something else"
@meta_description = "Fee fie fo fum"

You can modify the controller so that @title, @meta_keywords and @meta_description have a default value and then override in specific functions.

First of all, thanks SO much for the response.

When I go to ...sitename/stable/app/views/layouts
There is one file in the subdirectory, it is entitled application.html.erb.
Is this the file I'm looking for?

When I try to download it, all I get is an empty file..
Could it be that I just don't have access permissions or should I be taking a different course of action?

Thanks again!

Know nothing about Ruby, can't modify files on a website (index.html.erb??!)

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