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Posts with tag rails

Filed under: Developer, Web services

Endless pages: Ditching the "Next" button

No Next button"Pagination," i.e. turning a long set of, say, search results into a series of pages with "Next" and "Previous" buttons, is no fun. It can be a pain to implement, and is very much a pain to use, and yet it exists on every site that pulls a lot of records from a database. Surely we can't load all of the records at once if there are thousands of them, so is there an alternative? Yes! And I have a feeling some of you have already guessed the magic word--Ajax. Web developer Peter Forde has written an article explaining the "endless pageless" technique, which uses Ajax to automatically and seamlessly load more results from the server as you scroll toward the bottom, which guarantees that you'll never have to click on another "Next" link as long as you live.

You can take a look at the technique in action on this page. This technique isn't brand new, of course--Microsoft, for example, has employed it for a long time on Live.com Image Search--but it's still fairly rare. There's also one caveat that Peter Forde doesn't mention: With his implementation, it's not possible to bookmark or link to a particular point of the results. He cleverly uses cookies to avoid breaking the browser's Back button, but without a permalink the technique still isn't ready for all situations. However, as the technical limitations are overcome, I think we'll be seeing fewer and fewer Next buttons around the web.

Filed under: Developer, Web services, Open Source

Seymore: Slick Rails-based CMS

SeymoreSeymore is a Ruby on Rails CMS (that's Content Management System) by Thomas Mango that's still in the earliest stages but nevertheless looks pretty impressive. Seymore relies on the principle of allowing input wherever there's output, i.e. if I'm logged in and looking at a page of the site, I can edit that page right there, without entering an administration back-end or similar. The best way to get an idea of how Seymore works is by visiting the site and watching Mango's screencasts. He shows off Seymore's category system, WYSIWYG editor, wiki-like revision system, and other important features. Like I said, Seymore is brand new (first release: yesterday), so its to-do list is as long as its feature list, but it looks like it's off to a great start. I'm not sure what license it's released under, but since Mango makes the source code available, I'm gonna go out on a limb and call it open source.

Filed under: Developer, Windows, Freeware

RIDE-ME: Yet another Ruby on Rails IDE for Windows

RIDE-ME 1.0
A year ago, developing a web application using Ruby on Rails (which recently turned two years old) on Windows was a bit of a pain due to the lack of a decent integrated development environment (IDE). Now we're practically swimming in them. Let's recap: There's RadRails, the popular cross-platform, Eclipsed-based editor, RoRED, one for Windows with a unique M/V/C tab grouping, Ruby in Steel, an add-on for Visual Studio 2005, and now RIDE-ME, a new Windows-only Rails IDE with an uncomfortable-sounding name. RIDE-ME bills itself as "geared primarily toward developers who are migrating from a Microsoft development platform," which puts it in competition with Ruby in Steel. Version 1.0 of RIDE-ME was just released, and when I tried it out I was impressed by its snappiness, but I did come across several fairly ugly bugs that seem more at home in a 0.9 or 1.0 beta. I won't be switching from RadRails just yet, but I'll definitely be keeping an eye on RIDE-ME.

Filed under: Developer

Ten questions for great programmers answered

ProgrammingBlogger Jarosław Rzeszótko sent ten questions to a bunch of notable programmers and posted their answers on his blog. Though not all of his recipients replied, several big names did, including Linux creator Linus Torvalds, Guido Van Rossum, creator of the Python programming language, James Gosling, creator or Java, and Ruby hackers Dave Thomas and David Heinemeier Hansson. To a programmer like myself, their answers are fascinating. Some of the most interesting answers are to the "How did you learn programming?" and "Next big thing" questions. It's interesting to see that the none of the respondents came up with the same answer to "What do you think is the most important skill every programmer should posses?"

[Via Anarchaia]

Filed under: Developer, Windows, Freeware

RoRED: Another IDE for Ruby on Rails

RoRED

I love Ruby on Rails, but I have to admit, the acronym "RoR" kind of annoys me. Anyway, I won't let that idiosyncrasy of mine be a strike against RoRED, a brand new integrated development environment (IDE) for Ruby on Rails. RoRED is Windows-only app that has most of the features you expect in a basic IDE, like syntax highlighting (for both Ruby and HTML/RHTML), tabbed documents, and a file management/navigation pane. It also has easy navigation between methods, bookmarks and "hyperbookmarks," and macros. In addition, it also has a few Rails-specific features, like automatic grouping of model, view, and controller tabs, and buttons for managing servers and consoles. RoRED is free and a pleasantly light download: just 790kb.

[Via Ruby Inside]

Filed under: Developer, Utilities, Windows, Open Source

InstantRails - A LAMP-like install for Ruby on Rails Developers

Instant RailsInstantRails is a simple to use LAMP-like package that you can download to get Rails running on Windows in an instant. It includes a MySQL database, Ruby, Rails, Apache web server, and even some Ruby on Rails applications for you to modify including a version of Typo. InstantRails has both FastCGI and Webbrick, so you can develop with either. I find InstantRails is great for portability, such as on a USB flash drive, but isn't the greatest if you really want to do some decent programming with either Ruby or with Rails. Still the best idea is to install Ruby and MySQL from scratch. It isn't that difficult and it makes everything easier in the long run. InstantRails is also good for newbies to start on, but I find the file structure a little confusing (not that Rails doesn't already add to that).

Filed under: Developer, Text, Utilities, Windows, Productivity, Freeware, Open Source

SciTE: A Ruby-licious programmer's text editor

SciTE - A Scintilla based text editorEver heard of Ruby? Rails? Ruby on Rails? If you don't know, Ruby is a newer very efficient programming language and revolutionary way to code applications. Rails is a web framework that makes coding in Ruby easier by adding a lot to it's innate functionality and suave style. After becoming jealous of the Mac users out there who had a great text editor to use when coding Ruby (at least in the video tutorials), I decided to find a good one for Windows. Enter SciTe, which is a great text editor that comes pre-packaged with "InstantRails." InstantRails is somewhat like a LAMP installation for Windows, but with Ruby on Rails instead of Perl, Python, or PHP. SciTe is also available apart from InstantRails, and does a great job of editing CSS, HTML, and many other types of syntax as well. I am now using it for most of my "quick-drop-and-give-me-20" programming tasks, such as downloading and editing a CSS file by hand from a web server. That's right, I still make hardcore edits oldskool style (I thought everyone still did, my bad), and SciTe makes it easy. Integrated with my favorite ftp client (FileZilla, also free) it makes shotgun edits simple, and almost fun. SciTe is a free download.

Filed under: Developer, Web services

Rails Day 2006 projects

Rails Day 2006 live projectsJune 17 was Rails Day 2006, the annual worldwide event in which teams create cool new web apps in 24 hours using the much-hyped Ruby on Rails web application framework. I've been waiting ever since for a list of projects to be posted, but so far none has materialized at the official Rails Day site, but fortunately John at Burm.net has posted an unofficial list of live Rails Day 2006 projects. His list isn't comprehensive, but it lists 28 sites created in 24 hours that are now live in some form or another (except for the several that appear to be down). A few of the more stand-out projects are Roomind.us, Advisr, HugTracker, d20 Online, and Sneakology. Having been built in 24 hours, most of these sites are still pretty rough around the edges, but more than a year after I first heard of it I'm still impressed by what people are accomplishing with Ruby on Rails.

[Via Waxy.org]

Featured Time Waster

Forumwarz - a potentially offensive time waster

I pwn UAfter spending the better part of an hour on Forumwarz I still can't decide if it's just sick or if it's kind of fun. It's a bit like a car wreck on the highway. I know I shouldn't be looking but I can't quite turn away.

It's sick, it's twisted, it's the internet on it's worst level and darn it, it's kind of fun. At least for a little while.

Forumwarz is a parody role-playing game that takes place on the internet - or at least the Forumwarz version of it. Your goal is to complete missions that are given to you through a mock up of GoogleTalk called Sentrillion.

Your first "friend" is ShallowEsophagus who begins giving you missions to pwn various forums by being a troll. Depending on the character type you are assigned at start up, you have tools like drooling on the keyboard or bashing your head on the keyboard that you can use to destroy forum threads and eventually, pwn a forum.

Future missions involve buying illegal software from the Russians, pwning more difficult forums and other internet oddness.

Completing missions gives you cash, called Flezz in game, and items that you can pawn or use in other missions. The game is NOT for those easily offended. It's crass, coarse and there are frequent f-bombs in the fake chat sessions.

This is also a game for a more mature audience as it requires you to shop at the Drugs R Fun store to get various concoctions to improve your playing, engage in certain cyber activities to get more Flezz and just generally use a more adult perspective.

If you can get past that, here are the more enjoyable and time-wasting aspects.

View more Time Wasters

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