sadjow

My issues with Modules

In researching topics for RailsCasts I often read code in Rails and other gems. This is a great exercise to do. Not only will you pick up some coding tips, but it can help you better understand what makes code readable.

A common practice to organize code in gems is to divide it into modules. When this is done extensively I find it becomes very difficult to read. Before I explain further, a quick detour on instance_eval.

You can find instance_eval used in many DSLs: from routes to state machines. Here's an example from Thinking Sphinx.

class Article < ActiveRecord::Base

sadjow

cat new_schema.sql | sed -e 's@/\*!500[0-9][0-9] DEFINER=[^\*]*\*/@@' > new_schema2.sql

sadjow

en:
  errors:
    messages:
      wrong_content_type: "is the wrong content type"

sadjow

Friendly URLs

By default, Rails applications build URLs based on the primary key -- the id column from the database. Imagine we have a Person model and associated controller. We have a person record for Bob Martin that has id number 6. The URL for his show page would be:

/people/6

But, for aesthetic or SEO purposes, we want Bob's name in the URL. The last segment, the 6 here, is called the "slug". Let's look at a few ways to implement better slugs.

sadjow

ApplicationName::Application.routes.draw do
  # The priority is based upon order of creation: first created -> highest priority.
  # See how all your routes lay out with "rake routes".

  # You can have the root of your site routed with "root"
  # root 'welcome#index'

  # Example of regular route:
  #   get 'products/:id' => 'catalog#view'

sadjow

# encoding: UTF-8
# pt-BR translations for Devise
pt-BR:
  devise:
    confirmations:
      confirmed: 'Sua conta foi confirmada com sucesso. Você está logado.'
      send_instructions: 'Dentro de minutos, você receberá um e-mail com instruções para a confirmação da sua conta.'
      send_paranoid_instructions: 'Se o seu endereço de e-mail estiver cadastrado, você receberá uma mensagem com instruções para confirmação da sua conta.'
    failure:
      already_authenticated: 'Você já está logado.'

sadjow

# Use this setup block to configure all options available in SimpleForm.
SimpleForm.setup do |config|
  config.wrappers :bootstrap, tag: 'div', class: 'control-group', error_class: 'error' do |b|
    b.use :html5
    b.use :placeholder
    b.use :label
    b.wrapper tag: 'div', class: 'controls' do |ba|
      ba.use :input
      ba.use :error, wrap_with: { tag: 'span', class: 'help-inline' }
      ba.use :hint,  wrap_with: { tag: 'p', class: 'help-block' }

sadjow

# Use this setup block to configure all options available in SimpleForm.
SimpleForm.setup do |config|
   # you need an updated simple_form gem for this to work, I'm referring to the git repo in my Gemfile
  config.input_class = "form-control"

  config.wrappers :bootstrap, tag: 'div', class: 'form-group', error_class: 'error' do |b|
    b.use :html5
    b.use :placeholder
    b.use :label
    b.use :input

sadjow

# app/models/concerns/slugable.rb

module Slugable
  extend ActiveSupport::Concern

  included do
    validates_format_of :slug, :without => /^\d/
    before_save :generate_slug
  end

sadjow

Capybara Actions

# Anchor
click_link 'Save'

# Button
click_button 'awesome'

# Both above