render_to_string doesn't work

[quorak]

render_to_string doesn't work

[unixmonkey]

Did it work before?

I recently moved the prerendering of headers and footers into the make_pdf method here:
30de4a2

This should allow you a lot more flexibility since before headers and footers were previously only made when calling render.

And aliased render_to_string to render_to_string_with_wicked_pdf here:
3fbcca0

This should help, not hurt what you are trying to do.

Are you doing this in a controller or a mailer?

Could you provide a little more information about what you are trying to do?

[quorak]

yeah, I'm rendering a pdf in a mailer and send it directly with the mail.
I came up with a Wrapper Standalone class! Might be usefull for someone.

class WickedPdfStandalone

  attr_accessor :av

  def pdf_from_options(options={},variables = {})



    self.av = ActionView::Base.new(Rails::Application::Configuration.new(Rails.root).view_path) unless av
    av.class_eval do
        include ApplicationHelper
    end


    variables.each{|key,value|
      av.instance_eval("#{key} = nil")
      av.instance_variable_set("@order",value)
    }

    html_string = av.render(:template => options[:template],:layout => nil)

    options = prerender_header_and_footer(options)

    w = WickedPdf.new(options[:wkhtmltopdf])
    return w.pdf_from_string(html_string, options)

  end


  private



  # Given an options hash, prerenders content for the header and footer sections
  # to temp files and return a new options hash including the URLs to these files.
  def prerender_header_and_footer(options)
    [:header, :footer].each do |hf|
      if options[hf] && options[hf][:html] && options[hf][:html][:template]
        WickedPdfTempfile.open("wicked_pdf.html") do |f|
          f << av.render(:template => options[hf][:html][:template],
                                :layout => nil)
          options[hf][:html].delete(:template)
          options[hf][:html][:url] = "file://#{f.path}"
        end
      end
    end

    return options
  end
end

[leifcr]

Thanks for the tip on putting it in a wrapper. Same issue here with render_to_string with header/footer in attachments.

Another option is to generate the pdf in a view, and attach the file by reading it from the view in the mailer. Although that would add another hit on the server.

[yuthura]

Wicked PDF is not available from the mailer. We needed this in a hurry for a project I'm working on some time ago, so I forked it and monkey patched it by adding ActionMailer::Base.send :include, PdfHelper
to wicked_pdf_railtie.rb. Then you can just do render :pdf and render_to_string :pdf from your mailers too. Might be useful to others, but didn't (and unfortunately won't) add any tests for this due to time constraints.

[taelor]

I don't know if this will help anyone or not, but this is how I am rendering a PDF, and then attaching it to a email using Mailer. Check out the stuff dealing with "script"

https://github.com/taelor/radio/

https://github.com/taelor/radio/blob/master/app/controllers/episodes_controller.rb

https://github.com/taelor/radio/blob/master/app/mailers/episode_mailer.rb