Rails or web2py style URL routing in Django - ruby-on-rails

I'm new to Django. Seems that Django requires to define one URL mapping rule for each controller/action (view/function in Django's term). What's the easiest way to implement Rails-style URL routing, or at least web2py-style URL routing?
For those who don't know what is Rails or web2py style URL routing.
Rails RESTful URL routing
web2py URL routing: http://domain.com/C/A maps to C controller A function automatically.

What you're trying to do goes explicitly against Django's design philosophy: "Tying URLs to Python function names is a Bad And Ugly Thing." So I think you have two easy choices and one hard one.
Easy #1: Stick with rails
Easy #2: Use django the way django is normally used: one URL rule per view.
Difficult: Write a generic URL dispatcher that uses introspection to look up view methods based on URLs. Be very careful making it secure. And share it when you're done. :)
Not saying you shouldn't do it. But if you're looking for an easy way to do this I suspect you'll be frustrated.

You can write it easily in custom way - write one view which accepts the url and parses it. then it loads module you want. Then you will have only one rule in urls.py file, which will call just one view function.
Also you can create middleware probably to solve the issue you have....
But I wouldn't recommend to do so and I think it is best to stick with the style of routing Django uses. Why? Because later then you will have to think about custom url resolvers, you will not be able to use for example {% url %} template tag (while you will not customize it also). I think it is not worth to reinvent something here... But this is only my opinion, it is you who decides :)
Have fun :)

I would recommend looking over the documentation for the Django URL dispatcher. There you should a bunch of ways to solve your problem. However if you are looking for a quick answer on a faster way to define your URL's then I would take a look at View Prefixes they cut down some of the bloat that you may be seeing.
If you are looking at REST then I would recommend taking a look at this article.

Related

Rails one route, conditionally route views

We're building a custom cms and I was wondering if it's possible to have everything go through one route but to conditionally show a different view. So for example, everything is an asset but the sub-type could be article, or video, etc. Would it be possible to conditionally map to an article view?
You can render whatever you want. (Nutshell version.)
It sort of sounds like some sort of class inheritance should have been used, though, and each should have their own controller/templates.
This is not really a good idea, if I understand correctly. Sounds like you're trying to reinvent Rails' routing system. Instead of reinventing it, use it!
If I misunderstand, please explain your use case in more detail.

make rails url helpers use the appropriate protocol?

Hey, I'm allowing my app to be accessed via https and http, and everything is working fine except for when I use any of the _url methods. If I access a view that uses such a method via https, it does get served as https, but the generated url uses the http protocol. I'm wondering if this is normal, or if there is a way to make it automatic. I was hoping rails would automatically generate the appropriate url based on how the page was accessed.
If there's no way around this, what would be the best way to create the appropriate url? Would this work?
if request.ssl?
some_url(:protocol => "https")
else
some_url
end
I would prefer it if I could come up with a more automatic approach. Maybe if the rails url methods generated ://somedomain.com/some/path, that way I imagine it would automatically adapt the correct protocol.
Thanks, I would appreciate any help.
Take a look at http://ianlotinsky.wordpress.com/2010/09/29/ssl-in-ruby-on-rails/
It looks like there are a few approaches. None of which may be ideal in your particular environment, but in the ActionView::Helpers, there is a url_for method that might get you what you want if you start using that. The other simple option is to use relative URLs (ie: '/controller/action' instead of 'https://myawesomesite.com/controller/action') which can be generated by the url_for method too.
Beyond that, it looks like you're getting in to work arounds, or digging in to the rails path generating code and altering it yourself.
Not probably the most ideal answer you were looking for, but there's my $0.02!

SEO for Rails site, now or later?

My freelance web developer is developing a site on Ruby on Rails. Currently the URL structure is
http://abc.com/all?ID=category
Example:
http://abc.com/all?3=CatA
I requested him to structure the URL according to categories, such as
http://abc.com/CatA/3-page-title
but he refused cos it was too much work and cost involved as he is using the same model for Category A, Category B... I thought the URL structure that he is using is messy and not search engine friendly.
My question is, should I add cost to let him do a better structured URL I requested, or should I let the project finish, then do it in the next iteration?
I'm worried that if I do it in the next iteration, all the previous URLs structured in the old way will be purged and when sites that refer to it will show a 404 error. It's like I have to rebuild the site ranking all over again.
Any other solutions for me? Is that any way to redirect old URLs to new URLs automatically in Rails?
The way your developer is proposing to compose the URLs would be considered something of an anti-pattern is Rails. What you are looking for is close to what Rails does out-of-the-box when using RESTful resource routing, admittedly, I'm guessing as to how CatA and page-title are related to each other. A RESTful Rails route might look like this (using your example):
http://abc.com/categories/3-CatA/pages/10-page-tite
If he really is using Rails, and he knows what he's doing, then there should be no cost at all to converting to what you want. It just needs the correct routes defined and then a to_param override in your models to get the nice SEO friendly identifiers.

What makes an effective URL Mapping implementation and why?

I am looking at implementing URLMapping for a personal project. I am already aware that solutions exist so please do not answer suggesting I should use one.
What I want is to harvest the opinions of fellow developers and web users on URL mapping implementations. Specially I would like you to answer:
Which is your favourite implementation?
What do you like about your favourite implementation?
What do you not like about your favourite implementation?
How would you improve it?
I would like you to answer from two points of view:
As a developer
As a user
I would be grateful for any opinions on this matter, thanks!
I've only worked with django's URLConf mechanism. I think the way it relies on the urlpatterns variable is a bit flimsy, but I like its expressiveness in specifying patterns and dispatching to other url configurations. I think probably the best thing is to figure out your URL scheme first, and then try out a couple of solutions to see what matches best. If you're going hard-core REST using the full complement of GET/POST/PUT/DELETE, and checking the user agent's Accept headers, and all that, django will, by default, have you splitting your logic between URL config files and view files, so it might not be the cleanest solution.
However, since it's all Python, you might be able to do some more complex processing before you assign to urlpatterns.
Really, you want a system that does what you need. Your URL scheme is your API, so don't compromise on it based on the tools you use. Figure out your API, then find the tools that will let you do that and get out of your way.
Edit: Also do a google search for "URL scheme design." I found this without much effort: http://www.gaffneyware.com/urldesign.htm. Not comprehensive, but some good advice gotten from looking at what flickr does.
Well, I should have noticed the url-routing tag shouldn't I? :-) Sorry about that.
jcd's experience mimics mine - Django is what I use too.
I like the fact that the routes for an app reside within the app (in urls.py) and can just be included into any projects that might make use of that app. I am comfortable with regular expressions, so having the routes be specified in regex doesn't phase me (but I've seen other programmers scratch their heads at some more uncommon expressions).
Being able to reverse a route via some identifier (in Django's case by route's name) is a must. Hardcoding urls in templates or controllers (view in Django) is a big no-no. Django has a template tag that uses the reverse() method
The one thing I wish I could do is have the concept of default routes in django (like Rails does or even Pylons). In Django every route has to map to a view method, there is no concept of trying to call a certain view based on the URL itself. The benefit is that there are no surprises - your urls.py is the Table of Contents for your project or app. The disadvantage is that urls.py tend to be longer.

Simplest way to allow posting to a Rails site using MarsEdit/Ecto/etc?

I have a simple site, using restful_authentication and a simple model for the posts. I would like to use MarsEdit (or something like Ecto) to post/edit content. How would I go about this?
The XML-RPC system is rather bewildering - there's a lot of different variations (Atom, MovableType, metaWeblog, Blogger, TypePad, probably others), never mind actually implementing any of them.. The Action Web Service API in Rails, which is intended to implement such APIs, has deprecated a while ago..
Try a plugin...
http://github.com/calavera/atompub-server/tree/master
Or this library...
http://github.com/inkspot/alumina/tree/master
As a starter/prototype for what you need

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