Newbie: testdrive layout

Forgive me for asking this, Im new to this and starting to learn from beginning.

I tried to install the testdrive and see that render view in controller actually load default ‘main’ view(a layout) and with content of the view from ‘site’ folder.

Since it said Layout is implicitly applied when calling render() . How main layout also load view column1 and 2? and how if I want to change it like I want layout3 inside main view $content? cant seem to find the code.

Can I do like renderpartial main and pass variable of ‘content’ of ‘login’ view? So i can see the all the view I am calling.

Thanks in advance the all replies.

maybe this will help you understand

http://www.yiiframework.com/wiki/249/understanding-the-view-rendering-flow/

But where does it say to use column1.php as layout? it must be as a default somewhere in a file.

This annoyed me too, it’s actually in application/components/Controller.php, this extends CController and the controller in the default web app extends this.