Ruby on Rails Enterprise Application Development: Plan, Program, Extend Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Preface

• Chapter 1: Introduction
• Why this Book?
• Why Develop?
• Why a Client/Server Based Web Application?
• But why Ruby on Rails?
• Rails Handles Menial Tasks
• Clear Code
• Text Based File
• Open Source
• Plentiful Documentation
• Built-in Safe Test Environment
• Ruby on Rails in Detail
• Summary

• Chapter 2: The Initial Problem
• A Normal Day in the Office
• Examining the Data
• Data Objects
• Database Table Design Rules
• Separating the Data
• Naming Conventions
• Use Meaningful Names
• Use a Consistent Naming Convention
• Ruby on Rails Naming Conventions
• Constants and Classes
• Variables
• Methods and Properties
• Special Method and Property Suffixes
• Reserved Words
• Back to the Data
• Review the Result
• Project Preparation Steps
• How Good is the Source Data?
• Tracking Who does What
• No Log-On and No Authentication
• Simple Password Access
• User Log-On
• Recording Access History
• Access Control for Rory's Application
• Data Validation
• The Minimum Required Data is Entered
• Each Record can be Uniquely Identified
• Identify Fields that Need to Have a Particular Format
• References to Data in Other Tables Point to Actual Data
• Rory's Data
• Person
• Company
• Address
• Summary

• Chapter 3: Laying the Foundations
• Supporting Rails Development
• Addressing the Challenges
• Setting Up a Rails Stack
• Installing a Rails Stack Using a Bundle
• Installing a Custom Rails Stack
• Installing Ruby and Rubygems
• Ruby on Windows
• Ruby on Linux
• Ruby on Mac OS X
• Installing Rails
• A Note on Rails Documentation
• Other Libraries
• Capistrano for Easier Deployment
• Mongrel: A Better Way to Run Rails Applications
• Choosing a Database Platform
• Installing MySQL
• Checking Your MySQL Installation
• MySQL GUI Tools
• Ruby-MySQL: Making Ruby and MySQL Work Better Together
• Installing an IDE
• Eclipse
• EasyEclipse
• Instructions for Masochists
• In the Back Rooms at Acme…
• Setting Up a Team Server
• Quick Gem Installation
• Remote Access via SSH
• Adding Users
• Version Control with Subversion
• Subversion Standard Practices
• Setting Up a Subversion Repository
• Setting Up a Project in Subversion
• Browsing Subversion from Eclipse
• Other Subversion Clients
• Using Other People's Servers
• Back at Acme

• Summary

• Chapter 4: Working with Rails
• The World According to Rails
• Model-View-Controller Architecture
• Convention over Configuration
• Rails and MVC
• Setting Up a New Rails Application
• Using Mongrel to Serve Your Application
• Connecting Rails to a Database
• Creating a Database and System Account
• Setting Up a Database Connection
• Configuring the Rails Environments
• Testing the Database Connection
• Troubleshooting a MySQL Connection
• ActiveRecord, Migrations, and Models
• Model == Table
• Which Comes First: The Model or The Table?
• Building a Model with Migrations
• Converting a Data Structure into a Migration
• Defining Columns in Migrations
• Other Operations Available in a Migration
• Running a Migration
• Rolling Back to a Previous Version of the Database
• The Scaffold
• Completing the Database
• The companies Table
• The addresses Table
• Generating the Remaining Tables
• Models in Detail
• Creating New Records in a Table via Models
• Finders
• Finding All of the Records in a Table
• Virtual Attributes
• Sorting Records
• Finding a Single Record
• Finding Records Matching Search Criteria
• Finding Records Using Attribute-Based Finders
• Finding Records by Raw SQL
• Writing a Custom Finder
• Viewing the SQL
• Viewing Logs in Eclipse
• Validation
• Validating People
• Validating Companies
• Validating Addresses
• Other Types of Validation
• Testing
• Setting Up for Testing
• Anatomy of a Test Case
• What Should be Tested?
• Fixtures
• Tests for the Person Model
• Other Types of Assertion
• Becoming Driven by Testing
• Associations between Models
• Parent to children (one-to-many): addresses to people
• Parent to child (one-to-one): addresses to companies
• Parent to children (one-to-many): companies to people
• Many-to-many relationships
• Dependencies
• Testing Associations
• Putting the Project into Context
• Storing a Project in Subversion
• Ignoring Temporary Files
• Committing Code to the Repository
• Processing Data
• Exporting the Data from Outlook
• Mapping a Text File to Database Tables
• Coding the Script
• Summary

• Chapter 5: Building the User Interface
• Controllers and Views: A Recap
• Creating a Simple Controller and Its Views
• Views and Layouts
• Adding a View to the Application
• Displaying Model Instances in a View
• Pagination
• Linking to Another View
• Adding a Layout
• Adding a Stylesheet
• Adding a Controller for Companies
• Create the CompaniesController
• Create the Index View
• Test It!
• Summary
• Advanced View Techniques
• Custom Helpers
• Default Messages for Empty Fields
• Date Formatting
• Showing Associated Records
• Refining Using a Helper
• Showing an Address with a Partial
• Rendering Pagination Links with a Partial
• Adding a Menu
• C*UD (Create, Update, Delete)
• Creating a Person
• Refining with a Helper
• Validation Errors
• The Flash
• Finishing Touches
• Updating a Person
• Opportunities for Refactoring
• Using Filters
• Creating Application-Level Controller Methods
• Deleting a Person
• Adding Edit and Delete Links to a Person's Profile
• Editing Multiple Models Simultaneously
• Adding a New Address for a Person
• Using Functional Testing for Complex Actions
• Updating a Person and Their Address
• Summary
• Fleshing Out Companies and Addresses
• Managing Companies
• Stubbing Out the Navigation
• A Shared View to Confirm Deletions
• Attaching a Person to a Company
• Creating and Updating Companies
• Managing Addresses
• Adding a Callback to Company Deletions
• A Very Quick Interface for Addresses
• Summary

• Chapter 6: Into Production
• An Application Ready for Production
• The Application Server
• Memory
• Central Processor Unit–CPU
• Hard Disks
• Network Interface Card–NIC
• Don't Forget Backup
• Your First Production Server
• Setting up the Server
• Installing Ruby and Rails
• Copying the Files to the Server
• Using Subversion to Transfer the Application to the Production Environment
• Excluding Files from the Repository
• The Production Database
• Separating Development and Production Databases
• Localhost database–single database.yml
• Separate Development and Production database.yml files
• Using Migration in Production
• The Rails Database User
• The Web Server
• Mongrel
• Mongrel Service on Windows
• Limitations of Mongrel
• Mongrel behind Apache
• Installing Apache
• Apache on Linux and Mac OS X
• Apache on Windows
• Domain Name System (DNS)
• Configuring Apache to Act as a Proxy for a Rails Application
• Rory's Production Installation
• Using Two Host Names to Simplify Routing
• Rory Puts his Intranet Application into Production
• Errors in Production
• Slow List Rendering due to Placement of Additional Data Processing in Loop
• Symptom
• Cause
• Fix
• Application Error Following the Transferring of New Code to Production
• Symptom
• Cause
• Solution
• Back Up Rails
• Backing Up the Code Repository
• Back Up the Database
• Combining Your Backup Scripts
• Summary

• Chapter 7: Improving the User Experience
• Easy Access to the Application
• Use Routes to Simplify the Entry Point URL
• Build a Fast, Clear Home Page
• Users Need to be Able to Find Items Easily
• Use the Index View as the Core of the Search View
• Search–The First Attempt
• Do Not Trust User Input
• Handle Nothing
• Users Need to be Able to Search Without Knowing Exactly What They Are Looking for
• A Less Specific Search
• Case Insensitive Searches
• Adding AJAX to the Mix
• Make the AJAX Libraries Available to our Rails Application
• Enhancing Search with Auto-complete
• Auto-complete—Wow!, but...
• Use of AJAX—the Lessons Learned from Auto-Complete
• Show and Hide Company Address Using link_to_remote
• A Simple link_to_remote
• A DOM Object to Update
• Create a say_hello Action
• Increasing the Functionality of link_to_remote
• Show and Hide
• Alternating link_to_remote Elements
• Alternative Actions
• Debugging JavaScript
• Show/Hide within the Company Index List
• Using AJAX to Edit a Field in Line
• Render an AJAX Form via link_to_remote
• A Little script.aculo.us: Drag and Drop
• Make an Element Draggable
• A Place to Drop the Element
• Further AJAX
• Help!
• RDoc–Documentation for the Developer
• Help for the User
• Instiki Wiki Help
• The Best User Help Systems
• Keep Talking to Users
• Summary

• Chapter 8: Extending the Application
• Dealing with User Feedback
• Adding a Search Facility
• Handling Errors
• Catching Missing Record Errors
• Catching UnknownAction and Routing Errors
• Catching General Application-Level Errors
• Catching "Rails has Fallen Over" Errors
• Adding an Authentication System
• Cookies and Sessions in Rails
• Building the Authentication System
• The User Model
• Displaying the Login Form
• Checking Submitted Credentials
• Logging Out
• Protecting Actions
• Adding Simple Task Tracking
• The Task Model
• The Tasks Controller
• Task Views
• Showing Tasks for a Person
• Redirecting to a Person after Adding or Editing a Task
• Redirecting after a Deletion
• Handling the Cancel Link
• Setting a Default Person for a New Task
• Summary
• Uploading and Attaching Files
• Using Plugins
• Using acts_as_attachment for File Uploads
• Managing File Attachments for a Task
• Adding a Form for Attaching a File to a Task
• Adding a File Attachment to a Task
• Listing File Attachments for a Task
• Deleting File Attachments for a Task
• Protecting File Attachment Actions
• Summary

• Chapter 9: Advanced Deployment
• Deployment with Capistrano
• Getting Started with Capistrano
• A Complete Deployment Recipe
• Preparing the Production Database
• First Deployment
• Migrating the Production Database
• Running Other Commands on the Server with invoke
• Managing Mongrel from Capistrano
• Centralizing File Uploads
• Upgrading the Application
• Cleaning Up Obsolete Releases
• Downgrading the Application
• Troubleshooting Deployment
• Incompatible Rails Versions
• Missing Libraries
• Incorrect Subversion Password or Repository Permissions
• User Doesn't Have SSH Access to the Server
• Inaccessible Application Server
• Inaccessible Database Server
• Dealing with the Inexplicable
• Getting Back to a Clean Slate
• Housekeeping
• Starting Mongrel Automatically
• Clearing Out Stale Sessions
• Keeping Log Files Manageable
• Reducing Log Detail
• Optimizing a Rails Application
• Finding Bottlenecks
• Controller Action Profiling Using around_filter
• Profiling Everything
• The Rails Profiler
• Improving Application Performance with Caching
• How Cache Elements are Named
• Deciding What to Cache
• Preparing for Caching
• Page Caching
• Action Caching
• Fragment Caching
• Fragment Caching for Actions
• Avoiding Database Calls for Cached Fragments
• Clearing out the Cache
• Optimizing How Rails Uses the Database
• Ordering for Eager Loading
• Scaling Your Rails Infrastructure
• Using Apache to Serve Static Assets
• Proxying to a Mongrel Cluster
• Advanced Scaling
• Summary

• Chapter 10: Down the Track
• Going off the Rails
• SQL
• Gathering Data from a Daughter Object's Daughter
• Using a model’s ActiveRecord connection
• Using GROUP BY to Summarize Data
• A Deeper Look at Aggregate Functions
• Business Processes
• To Be Successful, Build Successful Business Applications
• Automate Simple Repetitive Jobs
• Rapid and Detailed Reporting
• Ensure Customers Pay for the Goods and Services that the Business Provides
• Review of Business Activity Examples
• Dealing with Success
• Just Because You Can, Doesn't Mean You Should
• Bought in solutions Provide their Own Opportunities
• Ensure There is Time to Complete Each Task
• The Final Destination

• Appendix A: Running Your Own Gem Server
• Serving Installed Gems
• Setting Your Gem Server as the Default
• Creating a Gem Server Manually

• Index