Introducing QuickStart Rails at sablog.com

Introducing QuickStart Rails

Written by Shanti A. Braford September 24th, 2005in Menlo Park 2.0, Ruby on Rails.

One of the things I’ve been working on lately is a way to kickstart a new Ruby on Rails project even more quickly than the standard rails myappname method.

It’s called QuickStart Rails.

This follows, I believe, the Don’t Repeat Yourself ethos because I always found myself doing the exact same things when starting up a new rails app. (login generation, decent looking decent/layout structure to work with, etc)

I’m eager to hear feedback on QS rails and how it can be improved. Please send comments / gripes / suggestions to: shantibraford (at) gmail

Getting Started with QuickStart Rails

Step 1. Export QuickStart Rails from its Subversion repository *:

> svn export http://svn.menlopark2.com/svn/projects/quickstart-rails ./myapp

* Subversion is required to ride the QuickStart Rails.

Step 2. Create a new database and configure ./myapp/trunk/config/database.yml to point to your new development database.

Step 3. Load the minimal user schema (from db/users.sql) for the login controller into the database:

CREATE TABLE users (
 id int(11) NOT NULL auto_increment,
 login varchar(80) default NULL,
 password varchar(40) default NULL,
 PRIMARY KEY  (id)
);

Step 4. Start Webrick (from your new app’s trunk directory):

> ruby script/server

Browse to: http://localhost:3000/ (or wherever you’re riding the rails)

Congratulations, you should now be on QuickStart Rails!

QuickStart Rails gives you:

	./myapp
	   |  /branches
	   |  /tags
	   |  /trunk    - main rails application tree (always the latest release)
	        | ...   - all the usual rails files

QuickStart Rails comes configured with:

A pre-configured login account controller (which uses the login generator: ./script/generate login Account)
A Home Controller and default route to /home/index : ./script/generate controller Home index about contact
A fairly sexy-looking design to help you get started & inspired (yes, you’ll replace it eventually, we know)

Future Goals of the QuickStart Rails Project

Themes

Themeswitcher functionality (ala Wordpress)
Themes go in a /themes directory (themes include: layout(s), css, images, etc)
./script/themeswitch <theme> — to change themes
Build a library of decent themes that can be included in a public Subversion tree and easily exported (per-theme or the entire repository)

Nano-Rails Ninjas — or — the Rails Sentient Engine ® Project

These will be embedded under your skin and behind your cerebral cortext.
Will write your Rails applications for you (even more than standard Rails), in your sleep.
TODO: Figure out a way to turn off the nano-rails when they become self-aware.

Any other ideas?

You can