I want to customize spree. I have downloaded the source files and modified them. Then I ran install.rb which built and installed gems. The question is: can I see the result of the development without gems building, which takes too much time? I'm newbie to RoR.
Customisations to spree are, in almost all cases, better made in your application rather than by modifying spree's source files. The spree developer docs explain how to do so (see in particular the customisation section):
http://guides.spreecommerce.com/developer/
Related
I'm building a social network and have been using the gem community_engine but have been having trouble implementing the large amount of customization that I need for my app. I figure this will make it easier for me to override and add methods, as well as help me to better understand and learn from the code since I will be able to actually see all of it in action.
So far in my attempt I downloaded the source code, added the default bin directory and config files that were missing, as well ass all the gem dependencies.
What else do I need to do to get the app to work? I realize that there may still be a lot and that it might not be easy to explain, but at the very least is there any sort of documentation out there that might help me understand how to convert the gem to a Rails application?
Heres the community_engine repo: https://github.com/bborn/communityengine
Because this idea may draw some criticism, I'll add that I was originally building the app without any huge plugins accept for devise however I'm running out of time to finish this.
More stuff I've tried:
Moving files to a new rails app, got server to run but encountered many seemingly random errors, fixed a few but more just seem to pop up that I cant figure out:
I also took a look at http://guides.rubyonrails.org/plugins.html but this gem seems to go beyond that.
I would suggest that you clone the gem and begin copying files from the gem into your a new Rails application.
The engine gem probably has a similar structure to a Rails application, so you should be able to move the files from the corresponding folder to the same folder in your Rails root folder.
You may need to move gem files out of modules, change namespaces etc. Relevant folders to look at files you'll want to include might include app/ config/ db/, any gem dependencies in Gemfile or the gemspec file, as well as spec/ or test/.
Beyond that I think there's no silver bullet answer to your question, you're just going to have to work through problems until you have this up and running, and perhaps ask subsequent questions if you hit on an obstacle that you don't get beyond.
I think what you're looking for is a way to hook your Rails Engine into a rails app. The Hooking Into an Application section of the Getting Started with Rails Engines guide should be exactly what you're looking for.
Here are two additional resources on Rails Engines.
A Guide to Rails Engines in the Wild
Rails::Engine - Ruby on Rails API
I have a set of functionality that I am considering packaging so as to use them in multiple projects, but I can't decide whether to choose a gem or a plugin. What is the difference? Which one should I choose?
Gem is currently acknowledged as the 'best practice' for Rails. (You can also package as a gem and include an install.rb so that your project can be optionally be installed as a plugin - see this Rails dispatch article).
Basically the only reason to go with a plugin is if your users will want to be able to modify the code more often than not, as it stores a copy in vendor/plugins. However, with the advent of bundler it's pretty simple to store your gems per repository as well and modify them.
If you go with gems, you get the advantages of dependencies, versions, and the functionality that rubygems.org offers for searching, alerts and so on.
Definitely make it a gem!
I want to get into rails by examining well built code
where can i find typical open source rails project that i can download
and learn from ?
i'm interested in facebook connect integration (facebooker), tag clouds, searching in
my website
I'm not looking not tutorials or screen casts
Thanks!
This question gives a good list
a list of projects with good test-suites
a list of open source rails apps to learn from
Have a browse of ruby tool box and download some open source. For example there's refinery and zena, two content management systems and Rboard, a forum. Depends what you want really but there's plenty out there. Ruby toolbox entries are ordered by github watchers and forks to give you an idea of their popularity.
I really like looking at the commits in teambox.
I find it a bit more complicated. But there's also spree.
There's also devise which is really interesting to look at too.
Finally, I'd recommend you to follow the rails commits (it's the only commits feed I have in my Google Reader).
Gady, this is an extremely rich topic you're asking about and resources are all over the internet. Try starting at http://rubyonrails.org/.
You should be able to find tens of questions just like yours (asked and answered) by searching SO at the top bar.
For Rails, part of it is the building process, so one feasible approach is to read a tutorial like http://railstutorial.org/book
then when in Chapter 2, you will use Scaffold, and at that time, you will have some basic code to look into how a basic Rails app is.
I also suggest you use source control like Git, Mercurial, or SVN to commit different phases of the project, from creating the rails project and then after each step, so you can diff what the changes are during each step.
If you already have Ruby 1.9.2, Rails 3.0.1, and sqlite3, then you can
rails new myproj
cd myproj
rails generate scaffold foo name:string salary:integer gpa:float note:text
rake db:migrate
rails server
and now you can use http://localhost:3000/foos to create, display, update, delete the foo records, and have quite a bit of source code to look at. Most of the customizable code is in app, with css and javascript in the public folder.
Ryan Bates has an excellent series of videos.
http://railscasts.com/
An extremely valuable resource.
Radiant is a CMS that you can download for free and see how it works. It is a great piece of code to look at and see how it works.
I guess that most open source Rails projects are shared on Github, so it may be interesting to browse its Ruby section and look for most watched or most forked projects:
http://github.com/languages/Ruby
Steady stream of new interesting projects to take a look at :)
And don't forget the official:
guides.rubyonrails.org
well there is one "bigger" project on github, waiting for downloading and contribution...
but it's a little controversial because of the security issued they have (had?)
It's still worth a look:
http://github.com/diaspora/diaspora
I'm trying to understand what exactly the above (in my question's Title) means? This is taken directly from the SpreeCommerce.com project:
If you’re an experienced Rails developer you may be wondering where your app directory is. Spree actually runs as an embedded Rails app inside of your gem. How do you customize things then? We’ll cover that later in extensions.
Source: http://spreecommerce.com/documentation/getting_started.html
Can someone further explain what exactly it means when a Rails app is run "inside of your gem"
With the gem spree, you can install your application and use it. A lot of application need download complete package to install it. When the gem spree, you don't. So it's more easier to install spree on your server.
The phrase you quote is poorly written and not particularly useful. What you should take away is that Spree is structured different from the majority of Rails plugins.
Typical plugin:
your rails app <-- plugin functionality
A Spree app:
spree rails app <-- your site specific code
Typically, most Rails plugins are installed in the vendor/plugins directory of your Rails app. Some additional functionality is added by classes and modules that you can then reference in your code (subclassing a ResourceController, for instance).
Spree does not work in this way. Because, presumably, there is so much configuration code for Spree, each Spree instance creates a separate Rails app -- one that's missing some of the more important parts of a Rails app (such as the app directory). All of your site specific code goes in the vendor/extensions/site directory. This means you don't have to worry about editing any of the Spree-specific code (since it's all in a different directory) and you can more easily put your own code under source control.
As a Rails developer I feel a bit stupid asking this question but hopefully I will learn something new and someone can put me out of my misery! In my rails applications I use (other peoples) gems all the time, I also use plugins from the community or my own.
I understand the benefits of use gems over plugins as they are version-able, segmented, system wide, easier to manage and share etc etc but I don't really know how to go about making a gem for my rails apps!?
Do you always start with a plugin and convert it to a gem, I've seen the words 'package it as Gem'. Also the gem I'm thinking of building would be no good in a normal ruby program, it's only useful to rails apps. I'm not even sure if the semantics of that make sense, 'RubyGem' that will only work in a rails application!?
I would like to create a gem (if that's what I should use?) for a discrete piece of functionality for my rails apps. It will need to add a database migration, new routes and provide controllers and views or useful view helpers. I'm know I can achieve this via a plug-in but would just like to know how/why to do it as a 'Ruby Gem'?
To avoid the risk of Over-engineering, I usually start with the feature I need directly into the application. Then, as soon as I need to use the same feature into another project, I check whether it is worth to extract it into a plugin or even a separate application providing an API.
Plugins and Gems are often interchangeable. Gems provides several significant advantages in terms of reusability and maintainability.
On the other side, there are some specific known issue. For instance, a Rails app actually can't load rake tasks defined into a plugin packaged as a Gem.
Almost every Rails plugin can be packaged as a Gem.
For instance, take my tabs_on_rails plugin.
You can install it as a Gem specifying the dependency on environment.rb. Or you can use script/plugin install command as you would expect.
If you want to achieve the same result, make sure to follow the standard Gem layout and provide the init.rb initialization script required by Rails.
Also, you might want to create an install.rb and uninstall.rb file to include the post-install and post-uninstall hooks when the plugin is installed as a standard Rails plugin.
Last but not least, if you package a plugin as Gem you can reuse it in non-Rails projects and provide Rails-specific initializations using the init.rb file. Non-Rails applications will simply ignore it.
If you want to make a plugin for Rails, https://peepcode.com/products/rails-2-plugin-patterns gives you a good start. After that, make the plugin into a gem.
To make a gem, this resource http://railscasts.com/episodes/183-gemcutter-jeweler will be helpful.
As of 2013 you'll want to use Bundler and the following tutorials:
#245 New Gem with Bundler -
RailsCasts
Make your own gem - RubyGems
Guides
Take a look at Jeweler. Jeweler gives you a set of rake tasks to make gem versioning and building very easy.