The Ruby and Rails community linklog
Made a library? Written a blog post? Found a useful tutorial? Share it with the Ruby community here or just enjoy what everyone else has found!
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Take control of your field values with nilify_blanks
Hate how NULLable columns end up as empty strings in the database when models are used in conjunection with Rails forms? If you would prefer to keep the field NULL when the user doesn’t provide a value, nilify_blanks lets you do this automatically.
Netzke framework - integrating Rails and ExtJS, live demo
An extensive live demo of the Netzke::GridPanel widget has been released on http://netzke-demo.writelesscode.com along with the source-code snippets. Netzke is a framework meant to greatly facilitate the creation of Rails/ExtJS applications.
Toronto Ruby on Rails Project Night returns for 2009
The Toronto Ruby and Rails Project night is back in 2009, kicking off January 14th with a rich offering of new ideas from the Ruby programming community. We are joined by presenters Ollie Saunders, Luke Galea and Steven Baker, and sponsor Careerious.com for what promises to be another fantastic event for Toronto’s tech community. Interested in getting involved? Visit correlations for more info.
Rails, Exceptions, Hoptoad, and Annoying User Agents
Hoptoad is a service that allows you to funnel all of your Rails exceptions to a central location so you can splice, dice, and fix them. I’ve noticed however that some web spiders mangle valid URLs into invalid ones and rather than deal with all the possible permutations it would be a lot nicer to simply have Hoptoad ignore them completely.
The RewriteRails Plug-In: Syntactic Abstractions Without Monkey-Patching
RewriteRails adds syntactic abstractions like Andand and String to Block to Rails projects without monkey-patching. All of the power and convenience, none of the compatibility woes and head-aches.
Installing Rails & sqlite3 on Mac OS X Leopard
I’m completely new to the Ruby on Rails framework, and I’ve decided to blog my way to knowledge. This is my first post, and fairly simple. But hey, maybe it will help some out. Check it out, Installing Rails & sqlite3 on Mac OS X Leopard
Contextify - Loading objects from Ruby files
Hey, ever wanted to load Objects from Ruby files without having to use YAML or define a custom class named like the file? Now you can, with Contextify.
Ruby symbols
I keep seeing some programmers from different backgrounds are unable to get what ruby symbols are, and though I do know that there are many great posts regarding this topic, and actually my intent is not to increase them by one :) , but i feel i have to clear few points regarding them. So I’m trying to answer answer 2 important question here: What are ruby symbols? and When to use them? Answers goes here :)
Action Guide to git submodules (with Rails flavor)
The article collects current best practices of a submodules workflow and form a “howto” kind of guide, So if you’re still asking yourself “How shall I track changes in my submodules?” or even (if you’re cool and eat your own dog food) “How shall I use the submodule in my app, have it editable/pushable and let others clone the app without any issues?” - read on, you should find your answers.
How to make a custom form builder in Rails
A quick run through creating a custom form builder in rails. This particular form builder will inline error messages into your form labels.
Little Known Ways to Ruby Mastery by Josh Susser
Josh Susser talks to Ruby beginners providing his insights on the Ruby language.
Rubyist Magazine Call for Papers Opens!
The second issue of The Rubyist Magazine is scheduled for February 2009, and this is your chance to be a part of it! Check out the site for info on writing, advertising, and anything else.
Ruby on Rails Tutorials
In the hope of helping people that are somewhat new to ruby/rails get up to speed, I’ve posted this selection of ruby on rails tutorials to help. I’ve tried to ensure they are still relevant and not teaching people things that hark back to the 1.0 days. Let me know if I’ve incorrectly included some which are out of date.
Load Model, for auto-loading models in your controller
Load Model is a Gemified plugin used to automatically load models in your controllers. Less effort doing the boring stuff, less magic than the REST controller plugin.
SourceClassifier 0.2.1
Have you ever needed to identify the programming language used in a snippet of code, for example in a pastie-style application or in a blog system? SourceClassifier identifies common programming languages using a Bayesian filter trained on a large corpus of examples. It is easy to extend to recognise other languages.
acl9: new authorization plugin for Rails
Role-based authorization system with a nice DSL for specifying access control rules. Available on github.
Krauter: A new router for Rails!
It’s less than five minutes old, but Jeremy McAnally has released krauter, a new router for Rails. It’s described as “Tiny (200 lines fool!), quick (adding routes so fast it hurts and competes with current router otherwise), and agile (OK…it’s not more agile. But it sounds cool.)”
Ruby Testing Survey
The Merbist posted a survey of testing frameworks. Which framework do you use?
How to migrate a Rails app from using Attachment_fu to Paperclip
A run through on how to migrate a project from using Attachment_fu to Paperclip as attachment plugin. This includes all the steps for a seamless upgrade including changing the file layouts on Amazon S3.
Hash serialization in an ActiveRecord model
We don’t often think about serialization in Rails but it can be very useful sometimes. This small article contains a little trick if you want to serialize a Hash attribute, for example in order to store preferences or options in the database.
Freelancing Tips for Ruby Developers
Some pointers and discussion about freelancing - with the focus on how to know what to charge and how to gain a bit of notoriety, taken from Rails Camp 4 in Australia.
Configatron 2.2.0, now with Ruby 1.9 Support
The latest version of Configatron now has support for Ruby 1.8.x, Ruby 1.9.1rc1, and JRuby 1.1.6 support.
Google's Ruby OpenSocial Library
Google has released opensocial-ruby-client, a library that enables you to work with OpenSocial services from Ruby. It’s open source, but sadly you need to sign some sort of document before you can contribute patches and the like..
Send photos from iPhoto to Wordpress using Ruby
Garrick van Buren has written a clever little script that uses rb-appscript and XMLRPC to send photos from iPhoto to a Wordpress blog. It’s surprisingly short and effective.