I am building a Rails app that is intended to be eventually used by non-technical people. It consists of a few pages with blocks of text and a special page with interactive canvas drawings.
I want to allow them to easily edit any piece of text contained in the application. What are the best ways to achieve that? Currently, text is written in the different views of the application, which does not allow them to edit it without having to connect via FTP or similar and search for the right file.
I am thinking of three solutions:
Store all blocks of text in the database. On each page, fetch the requires blocks and insert them before rendering. Build a page that lists all blocks in the database in editable areas with a save button.
Store all blocks of text in a json file. Create a model that can read the file and fetch the blocks required by the views. Build a page that lets you edit each block and save it in the file.
Create some kind of password-protected admin interface that fetches all file in the views directory, use regexp to find blocks of text and allow the users to edit each block and save.
From my point of view, all of my three solutions look pretty bad. It does not feel okay to do so many calls to the database? Store your entire website text in a file? Parse HTML with regexps?
What are the usual approaches used to solve this problem?
There's a great book out there: Crafting Rails 4 Applications. Here's the link to source code from the book. You will find example in templater folder. Basically, you will be able to create custom templates based on the request parameters (just like Rails does).
Update. Here's a couple of links:
Default views in Rails 3.0 with custom resolvers by José Valim (author of the book, by the way).
Implementing a Rails 3 View Resolver.
Also, here's 5 coins from me. Basically, it works like this. You need to define your own resolver and connect it to your ApplicationController (or any other controller you want):
class Resolver < ActionView::Resolver
# some code here
end
class ApplicationController < ActionController::Base
append_view_path Resolver.new
end
During the rendering process, Rails will ask your controller's resolvers to provide a template (it will go through each of them, until it finds template or until there won't be any resolvers left). In order to provide template, your resolver needs a find_templates method:
def def find_templates(name, prefix, partial, details)
# some processing here
end
So, based on this method parameters, you're going to provide some database records. But even if you have some kind of model already, Rails expects this method to return ActionView::Template instance. It can be initialized like this:
ActionView::Template.new(source, identifier, handler, details)
So, that's how your find_templates should look like:
def find_templates(name, prefix, partial, details)
template = DatabaseTemplate.find... # your custom model for DB templates
ActionView::Template.new... # initializing actual template
end
Both model and resolver in detail are presented in the book's source code (templater/3_final/app/models/sql_template.rb).
I have done that a couple times with awesome user satisfaction by using this:
http://jejacks0n.github.io/mercury/
There is also a Railscast available which gives you a good overview and step by step instructions:
http://railscasts.com/episodes/296-mercury-editor
Hope it helps. It looks good and is easy to use for end users.
Related
I am working on Todo app now and I have troubles. After sign in, I am on persons profile(first controller), on it I have button for new project(projects controller-2d controller) and after pressing it, appears button for new tasks(task controller-3d controller). How I can put all of this 3 controller's views on one page. Here an example of what I mean(approximately):http://todo.kzotov.ru/
You can put anything you want in the view. You could eager load the projects and tasks and put it all on the profile page. You also don't have to map controllers and views to models, so if the PersonsController or whatever is not what you're looking for, maybe do something more specific like ProfilesController and host all this functionality there.
MVC
You'll be best reading up on the MVC programming pattern -
The bottom line is that if you send a request to your application, it will only hit one controller#action. Your multiple "controllers" should not be something to consider - you should only look at the single controller action you're accessing at that specific time.
To be more specific about this, let me detail how it all works...
OOP
Ruby (on top of which Rails is a framework), is object orientated.
This is not just a fancy phrase - it's a real pattern of programming, which allows you to focus the flow of your application around the data / objects you want to create. The objects in Rails are derived from your Models - collating & organizing the respective data for your controllers
In order to understand how Rails works - you need to appreciate that everything you do is based on objects. Your routes, actions & data all work together to provide the end-user experience we know from Rails. How that happens is down to you.
Specifically, you want to look what what you're accessing
You don't want to load multiple controllers - you want to build several models and show those. This gives you the ability to show the HTML elements / files you want:
Recommendation
I would make sure you can put all your activity on your single view, which will then mean you have to determine your controller's data in order to provide you with the data you need to show:
#app/controllers/profiles_controller.rb
class ProfilesController < ApplicationController
def index
#your index
end
end
#app/views/profile/index.html.erb
<%= link_to "task", task_path %>
What you'll probably want to do is create a separate route / method to give them the ability to pull back ajax data when the initial button was clicked. I can detail this if you need it, but what I've given you should be ample food for thought
Hi I'm a beginner of rails and I'm not good at English. so if there is some total nonsense please understand..
I'm trying to record loading speed and page duration in every pages.
I made a database "pages" and method "savepage" in my "Page" model.
To save in every page I put "savepage" method in application controller.
Page.rb
def self.savepage
.
.
.
end
application_controller.rb
before_filter :dosave
def dosave
Page.savepage
end
these kind of format..
My question is
1. am I doing correct? using before_filter to do save in very first of loading process?
2. to save after loading all the contents in a page what should I use?
3. to save after user leave this page what should I use?
I saw before_destroy and after_filter, but I can't find what it is... what filter means.... what action means destroy....
thank you in advance!
before_filter is the first thing which loads before giving request to controller.But your need is completely different . Fundamentally filter are used boolean checking.If certain method is true,it will run otherwise it may not. This filter are further extended and we put code into that filters.(And Even sometimes it is consider as best practice) .
Now, before_filter :dosave might be right but is it not true way of knowing page(UI) loading process. I suggest you to use javascript call or use some manually created helper methods and place it into view .erb files.
May be this will interest you
https://github.com/grosser/record_activities
Log user activities in ROR
what action means ?
Action Controller is the C in MVC. After routing has determined which controller to use for a request, your controller is responsible for making sense of the request and producing the appropriate output. Luckily, Action Controller does most of the groundwork for you and uses smart conventions to make this as straightforward as possible.
Source : http://guides.rubyonrails.org/action_controller_overview.html
I highly suggest you to read above documentation. It is very necessary for you and it covers topic which you asked here.`
And one more thing,
what is action destroy ?
This is simply an action method just like new. Since, rails follow Convention over configuration ( and its developer too) so they put code which do some delete destroy or some destruction. This make thing simple,otherwise more configuration will require which is against rails policy.
So, I'm quite new to Rails and still working my way through the principles. I suppose like most people, I have started creating that basic CRUD. Okay. Done.
Now I want a new action: search. As it turns out, it is not one of the 7 rest sacred (!) actions (if got it right). While I know I could implement new custom actions and resource it and everything, I read in a few places to try my best to stick to the standard ones as long as possible. Okay. What would be the correct way?
Again a few sources like this guy suggest thinking of my scenarios in therms of nouns, case in which seems I'd need a "search" controller...? It just doesn't convince me that I'd have to create a whole class whereas I'd normally do def search just to keep it ResTful.
What did I get wrong? What would be the common solution here?
thanks.
REST is a concept, not a religion :-). But the core verbs are GET/POST/PUT/DELETE which map to their associated HTTP verbs. What's in the URL is typically a reflection of this, and (this is more the Rails philosophy) following convention can make everything much easier. The URLs you get with generic rails (e.g. scaffold) are not particularly ideal in several ways, but they work, and you can change them.
So, yeah, for search (assuming it's starting simple, e.g. finding records in a single model, say Product) then you could do a GET with a query string like this
def search
#results = Product.where("name ILIKE ?", params[:query])
...
end
Which would result in a URL like /product/search?query="foo" -- nothin' wrong with that.
It depends if your search is against ONE resource or many resources. For example if you have a ProductsController and you want to implement a search feature only for your products, you could create a collection action called "search" (the url would be /products/search)
If your search is for many resources, I'd create a SearchesController with a singleton resource :search in my routes file.
Then again, when you implement search functionality in your application, don't put all the logic in your controller but create models classes to handle your search. You can even create an abstract class to map to your search form and thus avoid using '*_tag' fields to create your search form.
See : https://github.com/slainer68/basic_active_model
If you want to adhere to REST (which is a guideline really, it has pros and cons), then the slideshare you link to is recommending the right way to do things.
So, for example if you have a comments_controller, and you want to be able to search comments, you could create a comments_search_controller. The search form would be at comments_search_controller#new, which would POST to comments_search_controller#create.
Yes, you are creating another class doing it this way, but that's not much different than creating another action in the comments_controller, and it does keep things consistent and separated. You wouldn't need a new CommentSearch model or anything, just that controller, which asks your Comment model for the relevant search results.
I have a very high level question that I cant find an answer to that makes sense to me. I understand it''s a terribly broad question but I'm only after some pointers in where to look for answers, not instructions on how to build my site.
So... If I want to render two different types of content in a single page using rails, how would I go about doing this? And how would I format the url? Say I create a gallery model and controller which has information about the gallery and perhaps a description, then I create a gallery-entry controller and model that belongs to the gallery which has an image and image name. If I want to create a url something like www.siteURL/galleryName/GalleryEntry that renders both the gallery info and description and all the associated gallery-entries but also a larger version of the gallery-entry that is named in the url where would i start and how would i structure this? How would i go about creating a url that has multiple attributes and how would i access them in the controller/view?
Thanks - and sorry for the vague question
There's several ways to go about it.
Your URL looks like a "vanity" URL that would exist in addition a normal RESTful route (galleries/:gallery_id/entries/:entry_id). The difference is that you don't want to show just the gallery entry.
If you want to specifically differentiate between different views of the same resource there are a number of ways it could be done, the two I'd consider first are adding another action, or adding a disambiguating query parameter. In this case, it's a hybrid, so I'd probably create a custom match and controller method.
The mapping might look like:
match ':galleryName/:entryName' => 'gallery#highlight_entry' # Or whatever
The action would be (more or less):
def highlight_entry
#gallery = Gallery.find_by_name(...)
#entries = #gallery.entries
#highlighted_entry = # pull from #entries, or retrieve
# Also, filter entries/etc. so the highlighted one doesn't show up
# etc
end
I just started deploying a Rails website. In fact, I started programming on Rails 2 days ago.
I've created a new project, added some gems, etc. Everything is working properly, and I have some basic knowledge on how all works.
The thing is that what I want to create is a simple website with some sections (let's say, News, Contact, About, Products...). All this content is kinda static.
But I came in a problem. I don't really know what to do in order to create them. What I want, for example, is something like mypage.com/products/fashionableproduct, mypage.com/about, etc, or even mypage.com/page/products.
I thought about creating a Controller, then an action for each page... afterwards, I came up with other solution: scaffolding. Creating a resource called page, that has a title, etc...
I'm really a beginner on this topic, and I would like to hear your helpful voice.
Thanks!
Check out https://github.com/thoughtbot/high_voltage for static pages for Rails.
And check out http://railscasts.com/episodes/30-pretty-page-title for setting page titles.
The paths to your files are determined by your routes. The configuration file for routes is located at config/routes.rb. You can match a URL path, and then point to a given resource. More information about routes here: http://guides.rubyonrails.org/routing.html
If you generate a controller, you can process any dynamic data and then pass this data to these "kinda static" pages. Here is an example configuration that would match the path "mypage.com/about" and display the appropriate page:
# config/routes.rb
match "/about" => "example_controller#about"
# app/controllers/example_controller.rb
class ExampleController < ApplicationController
def about
# calculations
end
end
# app/views/example/about.html.erb
<!-- This is your HTML page -->
I think the title of your post might be a bit misleading. I have the feeling you don't want static pages but some database stored content. Just like Ben Simpson tells you to do, create a normal pages controller and make it work.
In the end you might want to customize some routes to get them to be exactly the way you want as in your examples.
Since you just started the app, I strongly recommend you start over and make a new app with Rails 3.1 which is the most current version and learn how to do the basics through http://guides.rubyonrails.org/ and a few other sources such as http://railscasts.com.
You will then learn Rails the right way from the beginning. Good luck and have fun in the process.