I've developed a simple app to display images in a series of subdirectories based on querystring input. (I more or less built my own Rails version of 360Works SuperContainer, for FileMaker.) I have copied a few test directories into public/images and everything seems to be working just great, but this app needs to operate over upwards of 60gb of images, and putting them all into the public/images folder isn't going to really be feasible.
Other than hard-coding the path into my model, how can I set a configuration option to specify a different default directory for the images folder?
I think you can change the asset_host field :
http://api.rubyonrails.org/classes/ActionView/Helpers/AssetTagHelper.html#M001688
Related
I am new to rails so this is probably a simple question about using the asset pipeline.
In my app, I want to use this jquery plugin: http://www.fyneworks.com/jquery/star-rating/
So to do it, I included the following gem in my gemfile: https://github.com/RichGuk/jquery-star-rating-rails
However, I find that the image used for the star ratings is too low resolution and I'd also like to change the style. However, all 3 versions of the stars that are displayed are held in one image so I'd have to play around with the scripts as well to make sure they are configured properly if I make the image for the stars larger.
Back to my question: How do I edit this image file in my application?
I've tried downloading all the files and putting them in my vender directory and editing the file but it did not seem to work.
I know the files are included by the gem but how do make the files visible to edit?
Appreciate the help!
So the asset pipeline consists of potentially many directories (assuming you are using gems that inject their own assets into the pipeline). When an asset is being grabbed in Rails, Rails goes through these directories (in the same order, every time) to find the asset. When the name of the file is first found, that's it, Rails grabs it and uses that file.
Vendor asset directories are specified after app assets, I believe. So, if you place the image that you want to change in the app/assets/images folder, you'll essentially be overriding that vendor image in your application with your own image since Rails will search it's own app/assets first. Obviously, the files need to be named the same.
Try adding your star image in your assets path. It seem to
reference star.gif using the asset_path
I would also try
overriding the star plugin by creating your own css file.
Am using EngineYard to host my Rails 3.2 app. This application allows users to post images/assets. I save them in the public directory (using Paperclip Gem). Now, my problem is that - with a new deployment, I am having to manually copy over the assets to the CURRENT version.
Though, I could use AmazonS3, I still want to figure out if there is a way in EngineYard which lets me save/serve the assets from a different directory than the code, say /data/assets.
Please, let me know if you see any other alternate implementations too.
Typically your structure would look like
/data
myapp/
shared/
images
releases/
20120613000000
20120601000000
...
current (symlink to one of the releases)
When you deploy, you symlink public/images to shared/images and so your images always get stored in a non release dependant location.
I would encourage you to use something like s3: you'll make things a lot easier for when you want to host the app on multiple instances.
With the introduction of the new directory structure in 3.1 (i.e. app/assets/), should app images (logo, banner, icons, main bg, etc) still be stored in public/images or should they go into app/assets/images?
Someone mentioned:
I would be shocked if anything in
app/assets can be served publicly -
that wouldn't make sense from either a
security viewpoint or from honoring
the convention of the public
directory. Since you need these flash
files to be publicly accessible, you
should store them in public.
Valid point. Which brings me to the question:
Based on above understanding. What about the app images? If images such as logo, banner, main background, icons are considered public, why is there an images directory in app/assets?
Or should we still put these types of images in public/images. If so, what is the images dir in app/assets used for?
Note: I haven't looked at Rails 3.1 yet...
As far as I understood DHH's keynote, app/assets was introduced so you could structure your application in a better way. But there's nothing wrong with storing images in public/images. Thanks to Michiel for pointing out that public/images will no longer be with us in Rails 3.1!
The public folder will the replaced by the assets folder. That's the folder that your web server will point to. Files from app/assets, lib/assets or other places will be copied (images) or compiled (css, js) to assets.
That means that assets is now considered a build directory, and you shouldn't store anything there - you might even decline to put it under version control, and just have the server generate or copy the images and css and scripts when you deploy.
See also: http://blog.nodeta.com/2011/06/14/rails-3-1-asset-pipeline-in-the-real-world/
I copied the 'config' directory and renamed it to 'config_dev' so that I don't alter the current settings. How do I configure Rails to use the config directory of 'config_dev'?
Well, i'm not sure whether you can rename that and still make it work or not. However, i would highly not recommend that approach. If you must do something like that, better rename the files inside the folder, like environment.rb.bak or the likes.
Generally speaking a config folder is where important settings initiate from and i think that changing that convention can lead to more problems. I could be wrong, but i would just change the files (that's what the rails 2 to rails 3 conversion plugin does as well).
Whenever I add a new feature (eg. something I downloaded) I tend to want to put all the files (css, html, js, images) in one place.
Symfony 2.0 will have this new feature they called bundle system. Everything will be in its own folder. This will be great for adding new features so you don't have to mix all css, js, image files with each other. It should be per feature instead.
And also it would be great for deleting features. Then you know that all files are in one place and don't have to look for them throughout your application.
Eg.
Instead of this...
images/
fader.img
cart1.img
cart2.img
javascripts/
fader.js
cart.js
stylesheets/
fader.css
cart_main.css
cart_sub.css
...you should have it like this...
venture/
fader/
fader.img
fader.css
fader.js
cart/
cart1.img
cart2.img
cart.js
cart_main.css
cart_sub.css
Is there a way of doing so in Rails 3?
Sure, you could just treat them like a plugin - making a set of files into a plugin is very simple, after all - you basically just put them in a folder, in a file structure parallel to the root of your rails app, then put that folder in your vendor/plugins folder.
Here's the guide on it: http://guides.rubyonrails.org/plugins.html
Then, if you want to delete a feature, just destroy it's plugin folder, and you're clean.