I want to continue to create rails controllers and models as I would using rails directly.
Is it possible to have the site use the CMS except on specific objects I want to create the normal Rails way or do I have push all my code through Refinery and use decorators for development?
Yes.
You have multiple options here. Among them:
Create pure vanilla Ruby on Rails components.
Copy and edit some RefineryCMS files. The local copy will override the one in the gem.
You can also create presentors and decorators
Create an extension to RefineryCMS.
Related
I'm in the process of creating a rubygem which will be used with both Sinatra and Rails applications. Ideally, I'd like to have a single gem which can work with both frameworks. It's very simple - it provides some helpers, styles, scripts and view partials.
For Sinatra, I use the register method to register the module, which in turn adds the helpers, adds some entries to the load paths and optionally creates some actions/routes. So far so good.
My question is: What is the rails equivalent of this? Engines?
Since you need to define routes, I think a rails engine would work best.
You can load helpers with railties too, but I don't think it's possible to define routes with railties.
Rails Engines:
http://edgeguides.rubyonrails.org/engines.html
Railties:
http://edgeapi.rubyonrails.org/classes/Rails/Railtie.html
I'm surprised to see how simple is to customize things in rails.
You start by installing a gem that provides some functionality you need and then you just customize what you need to.
An example is Spree, which can be customized by simply overriding templates and ruby files with custom code.
I'm just wondering who's allowing me to do this:
Is it Ruby?
Is it the architecture of these Gems?
Is it the Rails architecture?
Ruby allows meta-programming since its evaluated at runtime.
In a rails application, you can add classes like ruby String to the initializers folder and add new declarative methods, which will then be added to the String class and can be used with Strings.
Read more http://www.vitarara.org/cms/ruby_metaprogamming_declaratively_adding_methods_to_a_class
It's part rails and part ruby. Rails has been written (and has been rewritten to be more) extendable by developers and plugins over the years. Certain ways of hooking in and overriding functionality are enabled through ruby and others would be the same in many less dynamic languages.
I used generate scaffold to setup the basic RESTful actions however I want to extend the actions to include something like 'purchase'. Is there a way to use the command line to generate the boilerplate (stub functions in controller file and updated route file?)?
As far as I can tell generate controller either wipes or leaves the existing file - there's no nice way to merge them.
Not by default. However, realize that in Rails 3, customizing generators isn't terribly difficult. See Creating and Customizing Rails Generators & Templates, and Bates' screencast on Generators in Rails 3.
Regarding your second "question," that's right -- the file is either replaced or overwritten.
I am developing Rails plugin (it is 3.1 Engine) called Carrier (https://github.com/stanislaw/carrier).
In one of my rails app I want to extend Carrier's controller with some new methods - fx. add new action #comment_form to Carrier::MessagesController (I want this action only exist in my app - I don't want to add it in Engine - because it is very specific).
Two strategies I see here:
1) I copy {Carrier's plugin root}/app/controllers/carrier/messages_controller.rb file to app/controllers/carrier/ folder of my app, and then extend it (all plugin's original actions are copied to rails app controllers folder too!).
2) More accurate way I want - is just to create {My rails app}/app/controllers/carrier/messages_controller.rb and write only #comment_form method I want Carrier to be extended with.
Expecting that two controllers's content (original from plugin's folder + custom in my rails app having only new #comment_form) will superpose, I tried the second way. But Rails then stopped recognizing all original Carrier's actions (#index, #show, etc...) written in messages_controller.rb from the Carrier plugin's folder and began treating rails app's messages_controller.rb version as the only one (all original actions began treated as empty and thus began rendered through rails conventions default flow).
So my question in general is:
How to add new actions to Rails Engines controllers without copying them entirely to Rails app/controllers folder?
UPD
For now I see two solutions which allow extension of engine's controllers without serious hacks (like this gem does: https://github.com/asee/mixable_engines from this thread: Extending controllers of a Rails 3 Engine in the main app)
1) load YourEngine::Engine.config.root + 'app' + 'controllers' + 'your_controller'
inside your_controller.rb that is in #{main_app}/app/controller/your_engine folder. Notice load instead of require.
2) Devise way (according to some SO topics suggest):
In main app create new controller that subclasses engine's one + edit routes to they point to this new controller.
I am still sure some even better solutions exist. Please correct me if they do!
Your option 2) is fine because it will let you upgrade the gem seamlessly.
Your current way simply overrides the existing controller.
Say you want to extend FooController.
Create a file named foo_controller_decorator.rb in your initializer folder
In the file:
FooController.class_eval do
#your additionnal code here.
end
I know this is a very old question but in case someone else finds this question, here is a gem that does decorators nicely. It hooks into Rails ActiveSupport and adds a convention to doing decorators that is safe from circular dependencies. We have been using it in production on multiple apps for a while.
https://github.com/EPI-USE-Labs/activesupport-decorators
I want to create a framework for rails application. It will be a rails application but packed into gem (like a Radiant CMS).
It must work like this:
gem install cmsframework
and then:
cmsframework the_app
After that we have a skeleton framework for a rails app, without any controllers, etc. All controllers are loaded from cmsframework gem.
If I want to rewrite some files (for example public/styles.css), I must simply create it in my app (the_app).
If I want new functions in my app I can create a plugin. But the main functionalities must be loaded from cmsframework gem.
What is the best way to implement this?
Maybe start here: http://guides.rails.info/plugins.html. Pay close attention to the parts about adding custom generators and packaging as a gem. This may help as well: http://railscasts.com/episodes/218-making-generators-in-rails-3.
You can use this framework it is very good CamaleonCMS