Ruby on rails making an app for smartphone - ruby-on-rails

I want to build an app that use in the backend Ruby on Rails. However my problem comes in the lack of information i found on it. My goals is not just to create a website but an application that interacts with it, like my android facebook app when pressing menu I get button like logout and so on.
I am wondering if their exists tutorial on how to build an application but using rails or should i scrap my entire website and do it in php. I am looking for guide and tutorial. Thanks in advance


You can build an app on any platform and make it interact with your Rails-based server using HTTP requests (like AJAX).
You can send information back and forth using JSON or XML; you would probably need to make a new set of actions for the app to use.
There is no reason to use PHP. ever.


A little unclear from your original question, but if you are looking to create a mobile app using Ruby (and a structure similar to Ruby on Rails) then you may be interested in Rhomobile. It is a cross-platform mobile application framework that uses Ruby for its backend code, and follows a structure similar to (older) Ruby on Rails versions.


From what I understand of your problem, you want to use the robustness of Ruby to develop a native app (not just another app that mirrors a website).
The best thing I know of for this is RubyMotion. The bummer is the cost ($200). But then you would get to accomplish your task.

Related

Rails API, JSON - how to connect to a web app and bring tables to life?

Hello!
First of all I would like to let you know that I am a fairly new to programming (mostly Ruby on Rails). I have been studying by myself for around 6 months. I recently got a first project - a voting app.
I have created the layout to the app - using HTML, CSS, bootstrap, a little JS and JQuery.
Now I need to bring the app to life - so, make the tables alive. I have heard that it shouldn't be hard to do in Rails API (using REST), which I have created with the help of some tutorials (like this guy). The webapp will be used only locally, on a device.
So, my questions is:
How to connect Rails API to the layout and make it "talk" to eachother?
I know I should use JSON to communicate the front end with server, but I am not sure where to start.
Thanks in advance!

If you're trying to make a website you should follow this tutorial. APIs are more for sharing your sites data or functionality with other sites, or for serving data to mobile apps/frontend frameworks like AngularJS.

How do I link two apps in node.js and rails?

I run a social network app built in ruby on rails 4. We want to improve it and add realtime and add live streaming features. We also want to make 'likes', 'comments' features real time. My lead programer says ruby on rails is not good for this and not possible and only way is to do it in node.js however doesnt know any solution to link node.js application to rails. I'm a business guy and not technical and need info to let him know it can be done.

Rails 4 doesn't have streaming(like websocket, maybe streaming is not good word in this context) functional from box, but many gems exist for this: https://rubygems.org/search?utf8=%E2%9C%93&query=websocket.
However you can use websocket.io if you decide it is a better solution, for example, in my current project we use websocket.io for send a notifications for mobile application through websocket: rails and nodejs exchanging data through Redis.

Using rails with phonegap

I have a fully functional rails app but, I want to create a mobile version using Phonegap. I've got Phonegap and Xcode set up but, I'm not quite sure how to go about it.
I want the mobile version to pull from the same database as the web version.
What technology can I use to achieve this?
Thanks,
Ramario

You should probably expose your database through a REST API abstraction layer either with Rails or a separate application using something like Sinatra, which I personally find better suited to API development.
Then your mobile app can make REST calls to allow users to manipulate data from the same database.
Or you can of course just make your existing web UI mobile-friendly and have people just as easily work with your Rails app through the browsers in their phones as they do the browsers on their laptops.

Web App that uses Webcam...any Rails plugins/gems?

I;m a developer looking to make an app similar to chat roulette. I'm pretty comfortable with Ruby on Rails as my platform and would like to program it in that.
The downside is I have no idea about how to do anything using webcams.
Is there a plugin or gem for rails that integrates webcams easily?
Some quick browsing brought me to abobes site...but I haven't used it before, and though I dont mind learning new things, I'd like to get this out quickly so I'd rather stick to what I know.
What you do you use for webcams?

You would have to use a third-party plug-in to interface the webcam with the site. Rails takes care of things on the back-end (finding and connecting users) but you would need to use Flash or something similar to connect the web page with the camera.

This question is pretty old, but we've been able to use headshot gem in one of our apps.
https://github.com/diwadm/headshot

Options for distribution of an offline Ruby on Rails application

I am developing an application in using Ruby on Rails, mostly as an excuse to learn the language.
This is not intended to be a web-based application - and perhaps I have chosen the wrong language, but...
My understanding is, that in order to run an instance of this application on somebody else's computer, they would need to install ruby on rails, and a webserver (or webrick, perhaps), as well as my application code.
I am just curious if there are any other options for distributing my application as a standalone app, or perhaps just a simple way to package up a web browser and ROR together with my app for a simple, one-step install?

I have personally never needed to do this. But, I have ran across this tutorial http://www.erikveen.dds.nl/distributingrubyapplications/rails.html that I think will be helpful. The tutorial covers how to actually convert a rails app into a standalone exe file.

Note, Slingshot appears to be a dead project (see comments). I'll leave this answer here for historical purposes and the off-chance that it comes back
Joyent's Slingshot might be a good bet.
Joyent Slingshot allows developers to deploy Rails applications like a standard desktop application, which work online and offline (with synchronization), have drag and drop, and interact with all the other desktop applications.
With Joyent Slingshot:
Create a hybrid Web/desktop application
Synchronize online and offline data
Use the same code for online and offline application(s)
Deploy and update your application easily
Drag into and out of application
Here are some further links to help with your evaluation and/or to help you get started:
Introducing Joyent Slingshot
Basic application walkthrough
Slingshot wiki

The way most people ship ruby programs, including Rails webapps, as a standalone exe is via rubyscript2exe. They describe how to package a Rails application at http://www.erikveen.dds.nl/distributingrubyapplications/rails.html. Ruby, Rails, and all the associated libraries will be included in the EXE file.
As others mentioned, Ruby is not necessarily Rails and if you really want an easy way to write a distributable GUI application in Ruby, Shoes is an excellent place to start looking.

Gears on Rails maybe?

You could always consider compiling your Ruby to JVM byte-code (via JRuby) or .NET byte-code (via IronRuby) to distribute to people who have those virtual machines and don't want to install a Ruby runtime.
You might want to check out Shoes for building desktop applications in Ruby. Rails really is tuned for building websites.

You can include Ruby on Rails by freezing it to the version of Rails you want to use in your project. They call this Freezing. The user will not have to install Rails to use your application. You can do this with any library you use in your project. If the project uses a library, just place it under the Vendor folder in your project. Then use a tool similar to what #Josh answered with to package it.
You will need a web server to run the project though. There is no way around this. Ruby on Rails is just like ASP.NET in this regard, in that it is a server side framework. The server runs the code and outputs the HTML to the browser by using the Rails framework.
Unfortunately, you may have picked the wrong framework to do what you want. Instead of Ruby on Rails, you may want to check out Shoes, which is a framework for developing GUI applications using Ruby.

You do not specifically say whether it is supposed to be a GUI application or not. From the other answers, I would guess so.
Therefore, you need to clarify what your goals are. RoR is a specialized framework for web applications. If your goal is to learn RoR, I'd say to get yourself some inexpensive web hosting and make yourself an app. If your goal is to learn Ruby, not necessarily Rails, then Shoes, IronRuby, JRuby, MacRuby and others may be good options to look at.

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