5.4. Setting the Default Root

Typing http://127.0.0.1:3000/photos/list or http://localhost:3000/photos/list is getting tedious. It would be easier to use http://127.0.0.1:3000/ and be directed to whatever page you want to designate as the starting page. Rails handles all of the URL mapping itself, so you can easily shorten redundant URLs. config/routes.rb controls the routing for the application, so you need to edit this file and find this section of comments:

# You can have the root of your site routed by hooking up ''
# -- just remember to delete public/index.html.
# map.connect '', :controller => "welcome"

Now, uncomment the last line and change it to:

map.connect '', :controller => "photos", :action => "list"

With this new routing rule, any time Rails sees an empty URL (represented by the '' parameter), it should invoke the list action in the photos controller. Before this change will work, you need to delete the public/index.html file. If you don't, the web server will serve up index.html instead of list.rhtml whenever you browse to http://127.0.0.1:3000/. Because the index.html is static, Rails will never get called.

Now try browsing to http://127.0.0.1:3000/; you should see a nice new photos/list page, complete with thumbnails and navigation bar.