No template found when accessing action method per route

Question

I want to render a (non-CP) template from an action method in my plugin controller over a route I defined in the plugin base class:

function registerSiteRoutes() {
  return array(
    'myservice' => array('action' => 'pluginhandle/controller/method')
  );
}

The action itself basically just sets some things up and renders the template:

public function actionMethod()
{
    // irrelevant code here...

    $variables = array('info' => 'success');
    $this->renderTemplate('pluginhandle/template', $variables);
}

But when trying to access the rendered template via it's routed url '/myservice', an error message is shown telling the template can't be found.

Strangely, it seems to work if I use the full action url actions/pluginhandle/controller/method instead. But, I want to have nice URLs if I can have them, right?

I tried it using craft()->templates->render('pluginhandle/template') and $this->renderPluginTemplate('pluginhandle/template') even temporarily setting a new templates path but none of them seems to change that.

Can someone please help me out?

Answer 1

I ended up using Jon's function renderPluginTemplate I found at https://craftcms.stackexchange.com/a/7132/6062 which basically implements what's written here: https://craftcms.com/docs/plugins/templates#plugin-template-paths-explained

I wonder why there is no easier function included into craft by default.