i am thinking of releasing a rails application as a gem. it's sort of a wiki application which also stores user data in the db directory. what would be a good way to go to avoid the user data being overwritten, when a gem update is done?
example:
1) user gets version 1 of the gem/application. the data is stored in the gem directory.
2) user performs a gem update and gets version 1.1 -> the data is lost! (because there is a second directory now)
my questions are:
does it make sense to package rails applications in gems?
are there example for other rails applications that are packaged as a gem?
how would the problem with the user data be solved?
thanks!
z
I guess using SVN or Git is the best way to distribute and update your application.
Gem is a bad idea for an application.
I would look into Warbler: http://caldersphere.rubyforge.org/warbler/
Related
Usually, I paste the gem code in the gem file and bundle install. But I realised I have multiple gems I use over and over. How do I include those gems automatically whenever I create a new rails app?
Any help appreciated. I'm still new. Thank you
I have a starter template for new rails apps that I use. Basically has my testing gems ect. and certain folders that I like created in each. Basically rather than rails newing I will just clone the starter repo.
I think he might be referring to just having an initial app that you can clone yourself like copy+paste
It's a nice idea, but I don't know an automated solution to this.
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
Before I start the process of building something from scratch I was curious if anyone else had come across a way of providing a first-time configuration wizard for a Rails application that allows the user (sysadmin) to configure aspects of the application such as the ActiveRecord configuration and the ActionMailer setup (SMTP, sender etc).
We'd like to provide a clean easy way for new installs to get setup, rather than asking clients to edit files, or run scripts on the command line.
Essentially you should be able to download the application, extract it, start it, and when you access it via the browser you're guided through the initial setup steps.
My question isn't so much around how to do this, but more has anyone already done this. My quick search for gems, plugins etc around this idea didn't turn up much.
Edit/Clarification
To clarify the scenario - this is to support "shrink-wrapped" products that are downloaded and installed on-premises by the customer's sys admin.
The first time they access our application after deploying it behind their firewall we want a friendly way of configuring the specific settings for their install, such as database etc.
An example of such a process is JIRA's setup wizard:
https://confluence.atlassian.com/display/JIRA/Running+the+Setup+Wizard
This isn't for reating new rails applications, or systemising our development process.
I like Rails Templater a lot. It is a command line tool to build a rails app. It asks you questions like "Would you like to use rspec? Pry instead of IRB?"
I have created a fork that adds authentication, twitter bootstrap and backbone.js and some other options. It is pretty easy to hack on if you have specific needs. I use it all the time and I would hate not having it.
It is of course a command line app and not usable via the browser but maybe it will still fit your needs. Or the codebase could be integrated into a client web application.
Update after comment
You may be able to bootstrap a sqlite database so the app can boot, then just using a form or a wizard to set up something that writes your database.yml and other configs, maybe by means of thor (makes appending/replacing text in files simple and is part of rails). You would need to somehow restart the rails app and migrate the database. You could keep the pg or mysql2 gem (or both) in your Gemfile or again use thor to edit them from your wizard/form.
I also recommend using rails_config as Michael suggested. With the above solution.
If I had more time to think about the problem, I may come up with something cleaner but this is how I would do it if I had to right now.
http://railswizard.org/ lets you select which gems to use. It's a very innovative use of the ui and the isotope gem to select the components. Similarly another viewpoint is this top 10 list: http://blog.teamtreehouse.com/10-must-have-ruby-gems
You'll never find a definitive list of gems as need change from person to person and over time, e.g. which database your company uses and which is the 'current' best authentication gem are both variable.
For configuration specific settings you can make the configuration less of a chore by using practices that reduce it. For example the database.yml file is usually one of the 'must be edited locally' files. Our approach for this to to exclude database.yml from source control by putting its name in our .gitignore file. We add an database.yml.example file which we copy locally to database.yml and in that file we use anchors (&) and references (*) as detailed here: http://blog.geekdaily.org/2010/08/advanced-yaml-tricking-out-your-databaseyml.html
More options for configuring other variables for each environment: http://kpumuk.info/ruby-on-rails/flexible-application-configuration-in-ruby-on-rails/
The rails config gem may also help you as detailed here: How to define custom configuration variables in rails
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'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.