This post originated from an RSS feed registered with Java Buzz by dion. Original Post: The Flash. The Rails one, not the Macromedia/Adobe one Feed Title: techno.blog(Dion) Feed URL: http://feeds.feedburner.com/dion Feed Description: blogging about life the universe and everything tech Latest Java Buzz Posts Latest Java Buzz Posts by dion Latest Posts From techno.blog(Dion)

There are lots of features in Rails that make you think "yeah, I really have wanted just that". Often, it isn't that you couldn't get the same affect in [insert your favourite web framework here], but you got it as a hack.

One of the small features that made me smile was the flash that Rails has.

As Dave mentions in his new, excellent, Rails book:

The contents of the flash are available to the next request in this session before being deleted automatically.

You just access the flash in your controller a la:

flash[:error] = "Doh. I thought I saw a pussy cat"

and then in the view simply:

Error:

Side Note

How nice is it that you can use -%> to suppress newlines. No more pages of empty lines in your damn voice source (a pain in J/ASP land).

So, sure, you can write a filter to do this stuff, and it is a small thing. But with Rails it is all just there.

Thanks for thinking of me :)