Slots

In addition to the content accessor, ViewComponents accept content through Slots, enabling multiple blocks of content to be passed to a single ViewComponent.

Slots are defined with renders_one and renders_many:

renders_one defines a slot that will be rendered at most once per component: renders_one :header
renders_many defines a slot that can be rendered multiple times per-component: renders_many :blog_posts

To view documentation for content_areas (deprecated) and the original implementation of Slots (deprecated), see /content_areas and /slots_v1.

Defining slots

In versions < 2.28.0, include ViewComponent::SlotableV2 to use slots.

Slots come in three forms:

Delegate slots render other components.
Lambda slots render strings or initialized components.
Pass through slots pass content directly to another component.

Delegate slots

Delegate slots delegate to another component:

# blog_component.rb
class BlogComponent < ViewComponent::Base
  # Since `HeaderComponent` is nested inside of this component, we have to
  # reference it as a string instead of a class name.
  renders_one :header, "HeaderComponent"

  # `PostComponent` is defined in another file, so we can refer to it by class name.
  renders_many :posts, PostComponent

  class HeaderComponent < ViewComponent::Base
    attr_reader :classes

    def initialize(classes:)
      @classes = classes
    end

    def call
      content_tag :h1, content, { class: classes }
    end
  end
end

<%# blog_component.html.erb %>
<div>
  <%= header %> <!-- render the header component -->

  <% posts.each do |post| %>
    <div class="blog-post-wrapper">
      <%= post %> <!-- render an individual post -->
    </div>
  <% end %>
</div>

<%# index.html.erb %>
<%= render BlogComponent.new do |c| %>
  <% c.header(classes: "") do %>
    <%= link_to "My Site", root_path %>
  <% end %>

  <% c.post(title: "My blog post") do %>
    Really interesting stuff.
  <% end %>

  <% c.post(title: "Another post!") do %>
    Blog every day.
  <% end %>
<% end %>

Lambda Slots

Lambda slots render their return value. Lambda slots are useful for working with helpers like content_tag or as wrappers for another component with specific default values.

class BlogComponent < ViewComponent::Base
  # Renders the returned string
  renders_one :header, -> (classes:) do
    content_tag :h1 do
      link_to title, root_path, { class: classes }
    end
  end

  # Returns a component that will be rendered in that slot with a default argument.
  renders_many :posts, -> (title:, classes:) do
    PostComponent.new(title: title, classes: "my-default-class " + classes)
  end
end

Lambda are able to access state from the parent component:

class TableComponent < ViewComponent::Base
  renders_one :header, -> do
    HeaderComponent.new(selectable: @selectable)
  end

  def initialize(selectable: false)
    @selectable = selectable
  end
end

Pass through slots

Pass through slots capture content passed with a block.

Define a pass through slot by omitting the second argument to renders_one and renders_many:

# blog_component.rb
class BlogComponent < ViewComponent::Base
  renders_one :header
  renders_many :posts
end

<%# blog_component.html.erb %>
<div>
  <h1><%= header %></h1>

  <% posts.each do |post| %>
    <%= post %>
  <% end %>
</div>

<%# index.html.erb %>
<div>
  <%= render BlogComponent.new do |c| %>
    <% c.header(classes: '') do %>
      <%= link_to "My blog", root_path %>
    <% end %>

    <% @posts.each do |post| %>
      <%= c.post(post: post) %>
    <% end %>
  <% end %>
</div>

Rendering Collections

Collection slots (declared with renders_many) can also be passed a collection:

# navigation_component.rb
class NavigationComponent < ViewComponent::Base
  renders_many :links, "LinkComponent"

  class LinkComponent < ViewComponent::Base
    def initialize(name:, href:)
      @name = name
      @href = href
    end
  end
end

<%# navigation_component.html.erb %>
<div>
  <% links.each do |link| %>
    <%= link %>
  <% end %>
</div>

<%# index.html.erb %>
<%= render(NavigationComponent.new) do |c| %>
  <% c.links([
    { name: "Home", href: "/" },
    { name: "Pricing", href: "/pricing" },
    { name: "Sign Up", href: "/sign-up" },
  ]) %>
<% end %>

`#with_content`

Slot content can also be set using #with_content:

<%= render BlogComponent.new do |c| %>
  <% c.header.with_content("My blog") %>
<% end %>