The
Palm
Civet

personal rails development rule #342: don’t check your email while coding.

mailtrap is a super simple mock SMTP server for rails development. it also comes with a mock pop3 server if you want to use it with a GUI like apple mail, but i prefer to just tail the log file in a terminal window. getting up and running with mailtrap is super easy: =>

# install the gem
gem install mailtrap
# start mailtrap
mailtrap start
# tail the log
tail -f /var/tmp/mailtrap.log

want your emacs’ rinari rails minor mode to use your rvm’s default ruby version? (answer: probably). it’s as easy as slapping this lisp in your emacs set-up.

i’m pleased to announce the launch of hifiving.com, a web application for making lists of things. those things can be videos, audio, links, images, or just plain words. it has been my pet project for quite some time, so i’m glad to get it up and running. please try it out and help spread the word!

in terms of development, the back-end is made with ruby on rails and a handful of other rubygems. i also did the design and front-end development. sprockets and less were heroes here. this is also my first experience using heroku for hosting, which has been great so far.

i’ve been very persuaded by john nunemaker’s passionate writing that mongo db might be the next new thing i have to try. sure, sql databases are the norm, but mongo’s document-based database format rings truer to me the more of a rubyist i become.

gridfs is mongo’s way of storing file uploads within the database and with the release of its new ruby driver, using grid FS is faster and easier. check the simplicity in this example code =>

db = Mongo::Connection.new.db('testing')
grid = Mongo::Grid.new(db)

# returns object id
id = grid.put(File.read('mr_t.jpg'), 'mr_t.jpg')

# get the file using object id
file = grid.get(id)

# read the file from grid fs
puts file.read

# delete the file
grid.delete(id)

the active development of john’s mongomapper gem for rails models and grip plugin for gridfs should definitely be on anyone’s radar who is exploring nosql options.

more rails development means more time in the script/console and irb, but it can quickly become a headache with doing ugly things like returning activerecord objects. for that, hirb’s table view is a lifesaver. check out this example output =>

irb>> Tag.last
+-----+-------------------------+---------------+-----------+-----------+-------+
| id  | created_at              | name          | namespace | predicate | value |
+-----+-------------------------+---------------+-----------+-----------+-------+
| 907 | 2009-03-06 21:10:41 UTC | gem:tags=yaml | gem       | tags      | yaml  |
+-----+-------------------------+---------------+-----------+-----------+-------+
  1 row in set
  =>true

if you want to get more snazzy, you can define your own views for a more custom output. git it at hirb’s github page.

to enable hirb by default in any local rails application, add this to your ~/.irbrc file =>

if ENV['RAILS_ENV']
  require 'rubygems'
  require 'hirb'
  Hirb.enable
end

a brilliant idea: porting the ruby on rails and jquery api’s to osx dictionaries, so you can do all sorts of system-wide things with them. you can search the api’s with spotlight, or if you use launchbar you can highlight a function name and trigger the ‘instant send’ action for opening with dictionary.app. you can also use the ⌘+control+d system-wide shortcut when hovering over a function name to get a small pop-up reference window.

when a clients needs a website, depending on the the level of control they will need over it i usually see two development routes:
- take an open-source publishing platform like textpattern, wordpress, or radiant and create a template for it, or (gulp):
- roll my own ruby on rails application. but the classic deterrent here is that building an admin is a pain in the ass.

enter typus, my new sugar momma. aimed at letting “trusted users editing structured content”, typus is a rails plugin for quickly creating a way for authenticated users to create and update the stuff they need to access.

first, take your time and define your application’s models and their attributes through migration files, then run the following commands =>

script/plugin install git://github.com/fesplugas/typus.git
script/generate typus
rake db:migrate

this will install the plugin, generate the database migrations and configuration files, then load up the database with the fields for your authenticated users. then, create the first user by going to 0.0.0.0/3000/admin in your browser and you are on your way.

not only are the list of core features both minimal yet comprehensive, but the amount of flexibility and configuration is quite amazing. since i’ve been watching it on github, the number of watchers has over quadrupled and for good reason.