I have an app and I would like to build an admin management system for it that would be using the same database and probably even models. I want to keep it separate from an app but because I want to use share models between the two, I'm debating wether to use an engine or build a separate app?
One reason I'm more inclined towards a separate app is because I can deploy it separately without affecting the main app.
Any suggestions, opinions or experience?
Thanks!
I would definitely recommend engines. Spree E-commerce is a very good example of separating a single app into engines representing core, frontend and backend. And it is very clear and handy in support.
https://github.com/spree/spree
I would place the shared models, migrations & code in an engine and use it in two applications: the admin app and the normal app. You might find these useful:
https://github.com/EPI-USE-Labs/activesupport-decorators
http://pivotallabs.com/leave-your-migrations-in-your-rails-engines/
Related
So I am starting out on company project that will have several components:
At first...
Job list
Client profile creation and management
User administration and access (login, signup, roles, etc)
later...
Messaging
Schedule
Basic reporting
way later...
Deeper analysis and bi
I'm wondering if it makes sense for each bullet item to be its own rails project, self contained and modular (if that is indeed the case); or if it's just best for it to be in the same app. I could envision a situation where each module could operate so independently of each other that it wouldn't need the rest (except for the user funcionality) and another situation where all modules would be used together.
It seems like to me that many tasks can be handled with a lighter framework like Sinatra (and then situated physically under the rails app). It also seems like it would be a lot of overhead to have several rails apps running on a server. But I am not totally aware of all the pluses and minuses to operating each scenario.
I know this is kind of a general question that is bound to get a lot of "it depends" kind of responses (and rightfully so) I was looking for opinions/examples of how you setup this kind/your kind of project in rails. I am a quasi noob so be gentle.
Thanks in advance!
Generally speaking I would consider a website to be a suitable target for a Rails app. Each part of the app can have its own namespaces within the app, so the app has some structure internally, but they should all be one application. Consider things like sessions, where you want a user to login and use whatever features of the site you want. You want those sessions in one application without a user having to login to different sections.
Saying that, if there is complex or extended functionality that isn't part of the MVC architecture (say talking to an external API, data-mining etc), then you could offset that to a separate project and a include it as a Gem in your application. You would still have one main Rails application that includes those Gems.
You might also want to bundle together a section of your project into a reusable Rails engine that can be loaded into multiple projects. For example, Devise handles user login and management. It is a Rails engine, bundled as a Gem, that you include in your project.
Another example from Meducation (one of my sites). I'm in the process of extracting our email tracking system out into its own Rails engine as I feel its functionality sits alongside Meducation and is not a core part of it. I can then use it in other projects as well.
In your specific example, I think your requirements fit fine in one Rails application.
My team has been developing a bunch of modules in a monolithic Rails app for internal use. The modules are for example leave request, staff info, tasks/todo etc. Each module has its own purpose but somehow is linked to common information such as staff profile and user authentication. Each module has a developer assigned and they commit code to the same Rails app. Currently, it's super hard to maintain the code and scale. Now, I'm doing my research to decompose the app into small distributed apps and make them an ecosystem. Here are the concept I'm looking for:
There should be a master app that maintain the views of other client apps. Better yet, it acts as a platform for other client apps to plug in to it. Staff logs in to this master app to access client app.
Master app should render views of client app using AJAX or other ways (not decided).
Although, I want to decompose the apps, but each app should still be able to query resources/data such as staff profile from other client app in the ecosystem.
Actually, I have not decided about the interaction of each app. Thinking to us RESTful (not decided).
It should support development environment where each developer can develop each app independently. Hence, maintaining their own code in their own git repository. This is probably the main purpose of decomposing the app in the first place.
I'm reading Service-Oriented Design with Ruby on Rails book, but it seems like they focus on decomposing an app into small different services, whereas I want to have small different apps. Just wondering if there's any other ways to do.
Sorry for a long question and asking too much. Just want to know if you have been in the same situation and can guide me to some articles, communities, books so that I can continue more on my research.
Ah the joys of refactoring. It can be a tricky dance trying to structure an application into logical groups so that parts can be decoupled.
I would strongly suggest looking into Engines, with the Engines vs Mountable being very informative. This allows you to build a mini Rails app (aka an Engine) that can be packaged as gem. The custom Engine gems are bundled into a Rails app, providing a complete set of configurable functionality (models, controllers, views, etc).
The usefulness of Service-Oriented Architecture depends a lot on what kind of data you are pushing and pulling around. That being said, Rails is really wired for RESTful, so you get a lot of bang for the buck with that route.
Suppose that you wanted to create two apps, both on Rails, but they share the same set of models. I'm certain I could 'hack' something together, that would probably work, but I'm curious what the best approach is.
Oh, and if you're curious about motivation: I want to freely restart the admin processes without disturbing the user processes. Also there is a bit of extra security not sharing the same session.
You could create a gem or engine with your models in the lib directory. Then they could easily be used by more than one Rails app. Google "rails engines" and you should get some ideas. If all you're doing is models though, a fullblown engine may be overkill and you can get by with a simple gem.
I have a rails app which contains some fairly generic functionality (eg managing users). I would like to use that common functionality in other rails apps without copying it. The hard part seems to be that this code contains a number of models, controllers and views.
I know that gems and plug-ins allow code to be shared but they seem to apply more to sharing utility and library functionality rather than core parts of an app.
Any advice on how to do this would be greatly appreciated.
We are working with a Rails engine to share functionality between client projects and have gotten quite far with it. The engine contains controllers, models, views, and even routes. It provides core functions needed in each project (access to our in-house content management system) so projects don't have to start from scratch.
Most of the code has been structured in a way that it can be easily extended or overwritten where needed in the projects (mostly by subclassing). It's distributed as gem.
I can't show you code (it's not open-source), but I can point you to some helpful resources:
Rails 3 Plugins - Part 1 - The Big Picture
Rails 3 Plugins - Part 2 - Writing an Engine
Rails::Engine documentation
Plugin Authors: Toward a Better Future
Hope this helps!
Making copies is not always bad. That's why I ask about the reasons you don't want to copy the code.
If you create a 'library', you must ensure that every application will use it in the same manner. Or you have to prepare the 'library' for every possible difference between your applications which use it.
If you share the code, you are adding a dependency to your program. Any change in that shared code will affect more than one application.
Often it's much simpler to copy the code to another application, because then your may apply any modification without thinking about others.
Are you sure that managing users is so generic that you will not make any application-specific changes to it?
What about creating links to the files/directories that have the MVC? That is better than making copies.
I have thi intranet I developped back then with PHP.
I handles multiple apps and tools (blog, link sharing, file sharing, events, clendar...), and a big user autenthication system for logging in and authorisation management.
I'd like to start re-building it with Rails.
I don't want to build one big app.
I'd like to build the site as multiple smaller apps, sharing a few common ressources like the user administration system, templates, layouts and navigation...
Rails Engine provide a way to embed an app into another.
I guess I could have a "main" app, embedding all other apps.
But I don't feel it's the right way (I may be wrong) if I have 10-15 different apps.
How would you do it ?
Thanks.
We've created applications that are split into 2 - the user facing site and an admin site. We just made 2 separate sites that have the same db and models and their own views and controllers.
This works pretty well and gives us the freedom to treat each site differently in terms of security and deployment.
I don't have any experience in going farther than that.
Check out ActiveResource - it is designed to allow you to use RESTful webservices as if they were ActiveRecord objects.
I'm working on a project now with a bunch of separate sub-apps that are pure web services (no UI). There's one "main" application that has all the UI and handles login/authentication, and then accesses the others via ActiveResource.
You can share the models between projects adding
config.autoload_paths << Dir["SHARED_MODEL_PATH/app/models/*"]
to your application.rb config file.
Or you can check the tutorials about ActiveResource such as:
http://andywaite.com/2010/12/22/activeresource-layered-rails-app
http://wholemeal.co.nz/blog/2010/03/08/active-resource-associations-and-nested-resources/
http://ofps.oreilly.com/titles/9780596521424/activeresource_id59243.html