I'm tweaking some scaffold templates for an app so I mostly just want to copy the built-in/default templates. My question is what is the process I can follow to locate the templates?
For example, thanks to the helpful answers of Tim Krins I now know to look in:
cd $(bundle show railties)/lib/rails/generators/rails/scaffold_controller/templates/ for controller templates (reference)
cd $(bundle show activerecord)/lib/rails/generators/active_record/model/templates/ for model templates (reference)
I also managed to combine his bundle show <gem> tip with spelunking through Github issues in haml-rails to figure out the path for HAML templates is:
cd $(bundle show haml-rails)/lib/generators/haml/scaffold/templates
I haven't yet been able to use that knowledge to figure out the general solution though so next time I'll have to search StackOverflow again.
How would I go about figuring out for myself the template locations for various test files (without telling you which testing framework I'm using)? How would I locate the templates used for the invoke resource_route step?
How do I figure out which gem to look in? (e.g. How could I have figured out railties vs activerecord above?)
How do I figure out what path to look in? (e.g. How would I know to look in activerecord/.../activerecord but railties/.../rails?)
Which gem are you trying to change?
What is needed in the case of the Devise or Spree gems is to recreate the filepath within the app directory, then copy/clone the erb/haml file from the gem's github repo, and make your changes in the local file.
There is a gem called Deface which can allow you to edit specific html components in views without recreating the entire view. This is a more complex but ultimately more maintainable path - depending on the extent of your changes.
Related
In another question (Why does the Rails command force a help message for the new command?), I found that Rails needs the rails script to be in the script folder, in the root of my project, in order for it to be properly detected as an existing Rails projects, and allow me to use the various rails commands other then new.
I did this because I felt that the more popular moniker for including executable content in a repository to highlight available use cases is by using the name scripts. At least the pluralism in English should be appreciated!
Is there anyway to change which folder the main Rails executable looks for the project-included one?
I actually think it's a bit silly to include this rails executable in the project, and can be redundant. Maybe it's for customization, but I feel that could better be done in the configuration, environment, other .rb files. So also, could this just be removed somehow, and still have a functioning project through varied use of the main rails command.
I'm new to rails and I've set up a standard spree e commerce solution. I now want to customize the default templates and styles. According to the spree documentation [1], the best way to do so is using Deface. Unfortunately, I can't figure out the location of the existing views/layouts.
For example, while the document suggests:
For example, to override the main layout, create the file YOUR_SITE_OR_EXTENSION/app/views/spree/layouts/spree_application.html.erb
my app/views folder doesn't contain a folder called spree
Can anybody tell me, how to change the view templates?
Thank you.
[1] https://guides.spreecommerce.com/developer/view.html
You have to actually create that directory and every directory along the way until you reach the file you wish to override. If you run these commands from your root directory you should be good to go.
mkdir app/views/spree
mkdir app/views/spree/layouts
touch app/views/spree/layouts/application.html.erb
Then copy the content from here: https://github.com/spree/spree/blob/master/frontend/app/views/spree/layouts/spree_application.html.erb into the file you've just created.
If you restart your web server you should be able to make changes to the local application.html.erb file and see them locally.
Any time you want to override a template completely, you can find the template you need to override on Github: https://github.com/spree/spree and recreate the necessary files/directories. Spree will look for templates in on localhost before the gem, so as long as you override the right template in the right directory, you can customize any view you like.
Alternatively, you can try running the rails generate spree:frontend:copy_views command to pull all the views you need from gems, and anything that is missing can be added manually, in strict accordance with the gems folder hierarchy. For example, in gems is parsl in the following spree_backend/views/spree/admin/users/_lifetime_stats.html.erb. To enter the desired code, I have to make a folder on the following path - the name of the project/app/views/spree/admin/users/_lifetime_stats.html.the erb and all the changes I will make here will fall into the main view code. This is an alternative to Deface::override
There's every chance I've approached this entirely in the wrong way which might be why I'm struggling to find an answer, as is typically the way with Rails.
For clarity, I'm referring to the -m option of "rails new", eg.
rails new [new-project] -m [this is where my template goes]
I've created a project/application template to speed up the creation of a specific project type, with the view that further projects/products will have their own template also.
The template adds in the relevant gems and does a bit of housework to tidy up the output of the gem installation (moving JS/CSS files to /vendors, for example) as well as copying over a generator that gives the option to expand the project further.
I'm struggling to understand if there is a way to test that the project template is working as expected and copying the correct files.
Have I approached this in the correct manner, and is there a way to test project/application templates?
Edit - Further research is suggesting that an Engine may be a better solution. Is that accurate?
A Rails Engine is a way to package some application or application subset so that it is easy to share with other applications. Basically, if you have some models and controllers that can be shared by multiple applications, you can use an Engine. This sounds a lot like what you described as a project template. Engines can be packaged as gems, gems can automatically behave as Engines, include rake tasks, hook into Rails initialization, and more, so why not take advantage of Other People's Work if you can?
Was digging around my Rails applications and noticed that there are rails.rb files all over the place. In my ruby gems directories like:
...gems\devise-2.0.4\lib\devise\rails.rb
...gems\cucumber-rails-1.3.0\lib\cucumber\rails.rb
...gems\railties-3.2.3\lib\rails.rb
I am assuming that there are executed whenever you issue some command like "rails xxx". So all these extra rails.rb files combine with the original rails.rb file to essentially make one big rails.rb file. Essentially, when we type in "rails xxx" it goes thru all them all?
Just looking for some confirmation PLUS a little more knowledge about this. Thanks.
The best way to understand what these rails.rb files are doing, is to read the source code.
ralties
devise
cucumber-rails
As you can see, in any library the file assumes a different scope. The common behaviour is that the file rails.rb normally contains the code required to initialize the library when loaded from a Rails project.
BTW, this has nothing to do with the script/rails command and there is no "big rails.rb" file.
The files are not generated but are simply source files of these libraries you are using.
In this case they are probably rails-related classes that either extend Rails in some way or modify it or make the library interact with Rails.
Rails is a very common framework in Ruby land so most if not all libraries will have some sort of integration with Rails.
By no means are all of those loaded when you run rails XXX but rather when your application loads these libraries their rails.rb files may be executed to provide some sort of integration with Rails.
So I have this idea for a RubyGem that I think would be an awesome experience to learn more about Ruby and Rails but...I have no idea where to start.
My idea is to generate a folder "articles" where you can put markdown files. From this folder the main blog page displays only the titles as links to the articles themselves.
It sounds simple but I honestly have no idea where to start. What articles do you recommend I read if I want to insert lines into routes.rb, generate a folder and display markdown in Rails?
I would recommend one of these tutorials for gem creation:
http://net.tutsplus.com/tutorials/ruby/gem-creation-with-bundler/
http://railscasts.com/episodes/245-new-gem-with-bundler
To modify the routes.rb file, you'll just need File.open to read lines in. Use regular expressions to determine where you want to insert your line, and write the file back out.
To create a folder, look at the documentation for Dir.new
For Markdown in Ruby/Rails, I like the rdiscount gem: https://github.com/rtomayko/rdiscount
Railties provide a nice way to do certain things like this. You'll probably use http://api.rubyonrails.org quite a bit. There is some Railtie documentation on that site here: http://api.rubyonrails.org/classes/Rails/Railtie.html.
I recommend reading the RubyGems guides – especially What is a gem?, Make your own gem and Patterns.
Since you're likely already using Bundler, you can run bundle gem <name> to generate a gem project with stuff already in place. It does save work, but refer to the guides if there's something you don't understand.
Also, watch some open source projects on GitHub – observing other developers and taking note of how they do things certainly helps.
The simplest way is probably to read other gems that do anything similar to what you want to accomplish. Start with their .gemspec files that will list all the other files which are needed for the gem to work, and a list of gem dependencies.
Responding more to how to get started with creating gems, the following are 2 popular, documented gems that can help you.
https://github.com/seattlerb/hoe
https://github.com/technicalpickles/jeweler
Also, though it does more than you're trying to do with your gem (it's a static site generator), https://github.com/mojombo/jekyll is a very popular gem which you place .markdown files into a posts/ directory which are converted to static HTML pages via rake. I would imagine you could find at least some functionality you're after there.