# Can I override app/views/layouts/application.html.erb from a plugin?

**URL:** <https://meta.discourse.org/t/can-i-override-app-views-layouts-application-html-erb-from-a-plugin/47267>\
**Category:** Development\
**Created:** [14 يوليو 2016، 1:57ص UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/can-i-override-app-views-layouts-application-html-erb-from-a-plugin/47267 "2016-07-14T01:57:38Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
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**Author:** ![npflood](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/npflood/32/120444_2.png) [@npflood](https://meta.discourse.org/u/npflood)\
**Post date:** [14 يوليو 2016، 1:57ص UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/can-i-override-app-views-layouts-application-html-erb-from-a-plugin/47267/1 "2016-07-14T01:57:38Z")

</div>

I have a very specific scenario where I need to load and cache the site header and footer from our primary website. This is fairly trivial to do in ERB:

```
<!-- My Customization -->
  <% cache("footer_#{I18n.locale}", expires_in: 1.week) do %>
    <%= raw open("https://myserver.com/#{I18n.locale}/remote/footer").read %>
  <% end %>
<!-- End Customization -->

```

Note in my example that I am passing along the I18n locale as well.

Neither the caching nor passing the locale will work with the html custom header option provided with Discourse so I’m left with two options, both of which would need to be implemented as a plugin.

* * *

### OPTION 1: Use Javascript

There are outlets placed where my header and footer would go, but I don’t know how to cache the requests and I can see this quickly becoming taxing on both the server and the Ember app if server-side caching is not used.

### OPTION 2: Override the application.html.erb template

_First off: I am very aware that I would have to keep my custom plugin in lock-step with any changes to Discourse to ensure that my override doesn’t interfere with upgrades._

This would be my preference but I can’t seem to find any convention that will let me override the ERB templates from a plugin.

#### Has anyone tried this? Am I on a fools errand?

Thanks in advance for your help.

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