Ruby on Rails Rendering tables with dynamic content and partials - ruby-on-rails-3

Question

I've used this site plenty of times to find my answer but im am unfortunately stuck now and need some help. On my main content page I am working on im running into an issue with creating a tables using CSS and div ids.
Overview
The table is compromised of 2 rows and 6 columns and then spilt into 12 boxes which each box 200px X 200px. Now the content of each box contains a new item (#books) which is generated from a separate controller(used the built in generate scaffold command). I am also using pagination to limit the items on the page (12) so older items just roll on back.
Issue
I am able to populate each of the 12 boxes with new content by using the following code on my controller and view
controller
def content
#books= Book.paginate(:page => params[:page], :per_page => 12)
respond_to do |format|
format.html # content.html.erb
end
view {content.html.erb}
<% #books.each do |book| %>
<div id="column1">
<tr>
<td><%= book.name %></td>
<td><%= book.title %></td>
<td><%= book.content %></td>
<td><%= link_to 'Show', book %></td>
</tr>
</div>
<% end %>
<br />
<div id="paginate">
<%= will_paginate(#books,
) %)
</div>
</div>
What happens when I generate the view is that everything is rendering perfectly but all of my books are using the same 'column 1'
<div id="column1">
<tr>
<td>Title</td>
<td>Name</td>
<td>Content</td>
<td>Show</td>
</tr>
</div>
<div id="column1">
<tr>
<td>Title </td>
<td>Name</td>
<td>Content</td>
<td>Show</td>
</tr>
</div>
I would like for each book to have its own column {2, 3,4,...12} so i can target each individually if i need to using jquery. The other problem is that i would like to use render partial for everything in the but when i use the render partial it places all the items within the 1 column {relisting of Book.all }so it just repeats all the contained information. I have a feeling im suppose to use another method or edit the current one to complete this but I'm unsure what goes were. Thanks!
greenz
Update
Hey Mike i really appreciate your effort in trying to explain to a newby whats going on. I basically went back to step one a applied each piece of code to see where it is going bonkers at. You are doing a wonderful job explaining the issue yet i can't grasp whats going on when rendering the code because the ruby doc's for rendering and layout are pretty basic and dont have any examples where i can see how div_for tag effects the rendering process (I'm a visual person). I wanted to show you the new code but comments don't allow it so i opened an answer :(
The first edit was removing the
<% #books.each do |book| %>
and replacing with
<table>
render #books
</table>
so now my code looks like this {content.html.erb}
<div id="maincontent">
<table>
render #books
</table>
<div id ="column1">
<tr>
<td><%= book.name %></td>
<td><%= book.title %></td>
<td><%= book.content %></td>
<td><%= link_to 'Show', book %></td>
</tr>
</div>
<% end %>
<br />
<div id="paginate">
<%= will_paginate(#books,
) %>
</div>
</div>
When this is applied i receive an unexpected end error when rendering the view pointing to the last line of my code.(When adding the end tag to the end it just threw another error) So i then changed the render page from _bookcontent.html.erb to _book.erb and inserted the partial between the column1 div as shown.
<div id ="column1">
<%= render :partial => "book" %>
</div>
<% end %>
I understand what this tag is now doing it telling my partial that for every "book" render the latest book id from the database. So now the render #books statement is keeping track of the books id for every render page i insert. (I could be mistaken but this is how i perceive it). So now onto the infamous
_book.erb that this page is rendering here is my code.
<% div_for(book) do %>
<tr>
<td><%= book.name %></td>
<td><%= book.title %></td>
<td><%= book.content %></td>
<td><%= link_to 'Show', book %></td>
</tr>
<% end %>
From my reading on the <% div_for(book) do %> is wrapping a unique div id around each book such as
<div id="book_123"> Book.name / Book.Title </div>
This div is now contained inside my column1 div ID from before which has all my styling for my column/boxes. From the lack of information on the div_for tag I am still running into errors and unexpected ends in my code. (Trying to debug the _book.erb with ruby -w doesn't work so i dont know how to use the end tags). These are the take aways i am trying to correct for my sanity.
Should I remove the <div id="column1"> from my content page and apply a new div id / class elsewhere on my content page?
Where do i insert <% end %> tags one in the partial and in my content.html.erb before my pagination? It seems as though when i have both the renderer complains about unexpected ends at the end of each page.
When substituting your code in place of mines i receive the above unexpected end but this isn't due to you im definitely missing a component in my code.
I could be approaching this the wrong way from a layout perceptive in the first place but my main goal is to have 2 rows of 6 boxes/columns w/ each box containing a different book. Then using pagination to scroll back to the earlier books and apply the same layout which it does fine now but i am using the same column id for each book and need to target all the boxes separately.

Answer 1

If I understand you correctly, this is just a case of it doing what you said, not what you meant.
Whatever controller has the content method should look like this:
def content
#books = Book.paginate :page => params[:page], :per_page => 50
end
Your view should look like this(old syntax but still should work fine).
content.html.erb:
<div id="maincontent">
<table>
<%= render :partial => 'book', :collection => #books %>
</table>
<br />
<%= will_paginate #books %>
</div>
Or try the new syntax. The new syntax is weird and I haven't tried it personally but I think this should work. So here is the alternate, more Rails 3 version of content.html.erb:
<div id="maincontent">
<table>
<%= render #books %>
</table>
<br />
<%= will_paginate #books %>
</div>
I think it chooses the partial based on the class name and whether it is enumerable.
The _book.html.erb partial:
<%= div_for(book) do %>
<tr>
<td><%= book.name %></td>
<td><%= book.title %></td>
<td><%= book.content %></td>
<td><%= link_to 'Show', video %></td>
</tr>
<% end %>
Div_for is the secret sauce.
The only end that is required is the one inside the partial to close the block opened when we called do after the div_for.

Answer 2

Now i am getting unexpected end errors when i render the page here is my view
view = content.html.erb
<div id="maincontent">
render #books
<div id="column1">
<tr>
<%= render :partial => "bookcontent" %>
</tr>
</div>
<% end %>
<br />
<div id="paginate">
<%= will_paginate(#books,
) %>
</div>
</div>
Here is my render partial = _bookcontent.html.erb
<% div_for(book) %>
<tr>
<h3><%= book.name %></h3>
<h3><%= book.title %></h3>
<h3><%= book.content %></h3>
<h3><%= link_to 'Show', book %></h3>
</tr>
<% end %>
I am also clueless as to if i should be using a div id or class. By default i always use just an id.

Answer 3

If I understand correctly, your code is working fine but you want to have:
column1
column2
column3
...
for each book. If that is the case, why don't you simply replace:
<div id="column1">
with
<div id="column#{#book.id}">
or use a counter
<%
book_counter=0
#books.each do |book|
book_counter = book_counter+1
%>
<div id="column#{book_counter.to_s}">