Tips for Continuing Rails Development from 3rd Party

Sometimes you are continuing the works of 3rd party that is not so good.
Here is how I manage to continue developing the old project.

0. Check the application, play around a little bit until you know the work flow of the project.
1. Check errors when migrating. Sometimes old migrations hadn't been done correctly. You might want to update the migrations, tidy them a little, and make sure there is no fatal bug that might lurk somewhere on the migrations.
2. Check the environment configuration, plugins, gems, stylesheets, javascripts, and other dependencies that might be missing, and update the applications when necessary.
3. Refactor the model. You can refactor the models, remove unused methods (be sure to grep them first), remove unused comments, and sort or group the methods. You can change the models so they use nested attributes, and so on.
4. Look at the controllers. Start from home, and follow the work flow. Usually that means start from registering an user. Look at the methods on the controllers, refactor the controllers when necessary, such as inefficient queries. Shorten them whenever possible and try to get used to the methods. Try to use dynamic finder, named scope, rails helper methods to make sure your application works efficiently. Also remember the general guideline, skinny controller, fat model.
5. When you investigate a method on a controllers, look at the views. This is the crucial part. Make sure you adjust the view according to the proper rails work flow, such as finding objects on controllers, not on the view. On this stage you might want to use plugins that help tidying your application such as bullet (detecting n+1 queries), rails_best_practices, request-log-analyzer.

I hope this post can help you when you are continuing 3rd party works.

Making Windows Installer for Ruby on Rails Application

You'll be needing these applications:
Inno Setup
Inno Setup homepage
ISTool
ISTool homepage
SetEnv
SetEvn CodeProject
Ruby binaries
Ruby FTP
ImageMagick binaries (if you are using imagemagick)
ImageMagick Binary Release, choose the zip archive for windows
MySQL binaries
MySQL Downloads, choose the zip archive for windows

Steps to create installer:
0. Extract ruby to some folder, i.e. c:\ruby\bin
1. Install required gem. Probably you'll notice messages telling missing required dll like iconv.dll, readline.dll, zlib.dll. Search the dll from the net and copy them to the ruby\bin folder. Make sure everything works by creating and running Ruby on Rails application.
2. Extract ImageMagick to some folder
3. Extract MySQL to some folder
4. Install Inno Setup and ISTool.
5. Open Inno Setup / ISTool and make an .iss file
6. OpenAdd the first entry to iss file:

[Setup]
; NOTE: The value of AppId uniquely identifies this application.
; Do not use the same AppId value in installers for other applications.
; (To generate a new GUID, click Tools | Generate GUID inside the IDE.)
AppId={{4C04F356-5D30-42DA-81F2-78AD49AD47A5}
AppName=Sample Application
AppVerName=1.0.0
AppPublisher=Sample Application
AppPublisherURL=http://www.example.com
AppSupportURL=http://www.example.com
AppUpdatesURL=http://www.example.com
DefaultDirName=c:\installation\
DisableDirPage=yes
DefaultGroupName=Sample Application
DisableProgramGroupPage=yes
LicenseFile=license.txt
OutputBaseFilename=setup
Compression=lzma
SolidCompression=yes
[Languages]
Name: english; MessagesFile: compiler:Default.isl
[Icons]
Name: {group}\{cm:UninstallProgram,Sample}; Filename: {uninstallexe}
Name: {group}\Setup; Filename: {app}\setup.bat
Name: {group}\Start; Filename: {app}\start.bat

I don't recommend using program files for DefaultDirName, since ruby and mysql probably will throw errors if installed on folder named with a space.

Notice that I also make 2 file called setup.bat and start.bat
setup.bat

@echo off
cd C:\installation\rails_apps\some_app_name
set RAILS_ENV=production
rake db:migrate

start.bat

@echo off
cd C:\installation\rails_apps\some_app_name
set RAILS_ENV=production
ruby script/server

7. Adding Directories and Files
You can add directories like this:

[Dirs]
Name: {app}\ruby
[Sources]
Source: ruby\bin\ruby.exe; DestDir: {app}\ruby\bin

{{app}} stands for installation folder

For files, the first path is your current file path. You can use full path like c:\ or relative path.

Add the extracted ruby directory, mysql, and imagemagick, and application source to the installation file. You might want to sanitize the files first by removing unused files such as gem documentation files.
You can add all the file by hand, but adding 1000+ directories and gazillion files isn't worth it. You can drag and drop directories from windows explorer to ISTool. So downloading ISTool actually necessary.

Don't forget to include setenv.exe to the installation files.

8. Add this on iss file:

[Run]
Filename: {app}\SetEnv.exe; Parameters: "-a PATH %""{app}\ruby\bin"""; Flags: runminimized; StatusMsg: Adding ruby PATH
Filename: {app}\SetEnv.exe; Parameters: "-a PATH %""{app}\mysql\bin"""; Flags: runminimized; StatusMsg: Adding mysql PATH
Filename: {app}\SetEnv.exe; Parameters: "-a PATH %""{app}\ImageMagick"""; Flags: runminimized; StatusMsg: Adding imagemagick PATH
Filename: {app}\SetEnv.exe; Parameters: "-a MAGICK_HOME ""{app}\ImageMagick"""; Flags: runminimized; StatusMsg: Adding magickhome PATH
Filename: {app}\mysql\bin\mysqld.exe; Parameters: --install; Flags: runminimized; StatusMsg: mysql service installation
Filename: {sys}\net.exe; Parameters: start mysql; Flags: runminimized; StatusMsg: Starting mysql service
Filename: {app}\mysql\bin\mysqladmin.exe; Parameters: -u root password masterkey; StatusMsg: changing mysql root password; Flags: runhidden
[UninstallRun]
Filename: {sys}\net.exe; Parameters: stop mysql
Filename: {app}\mysql\bin\mysqld.exe; Parameters: --remove
Filename: {app}\SetEnv.exe; Parameters: "-d PATH %""{app}\ruby\bin"""; Flags: runminimized
Filename: {app}\SetEnv.exe; Parameters: "-d PATH %""{app}\mysql\bin"""; Flags: runminimized
Filename: {app}\SetEnv.exe; Parameters: "-d PATH %""{app}\ImageMagick"""; Flags: runminimized
Filename: {app}\SetEnv.exe; Parameters: "-d MAGICK_HOME ""{app}\ImageMagick"""; Flags: runminimized

{{sys}} stands for system32 folder.
run means programs that runned on installation.
uninstallrun means prorams that runned on uninstallation
Actually you can set environment variables such as PATH using registry, but using setenv really makes things easier.

Now you can compile the installation script on Inno Setup or ISTool.
After you get the setup.exe, you can try installing on clean machine.

Upgrading Cucumber on Existing Rails Application

If you are upgrading cucumber gem on existing rails applications, sometimes you meet error on doing cucumber test.

You can fix the errors by doing this step-by-step:
If you are seeing conflicting files, don't overwrite, but diff them first.

From cucumber 0.3.x to < 0.4.3

ruby script/generate cucumber

From cucumber 0.4.3 to > 0.4.3

ruby script/generate cucumber

From cucumber < 0.5.0 to > 0.5.0

sudo gem install cucumber-rails
rm features/support/version_check.rb
cp features/step_definitions/webrat_steps.rb features/step_definitions/backup_webrat_steps.rb
rm features/step_definitions/webrat_steps.rb
ruby script/generate cucumber

Merge your changes on features/step_definitions/webrat_steps.rb to features/step_definitions/web_steps.rb
Then you can safely remove webrat_steps definition.

rm features/step_definitions/backup_webrat_steps.rb

If you are seeing warning messages indicating deprecated feature, comment this line on features/support/env.rb

require 'cucumber/webrat/element_locator' # Deprecated in favor of #tableish - remove this line if you don't use #element_at or #table_at

You have to install database_cleaner gem too.

sudo gem install database_cleaner

Cucumber test output in html format is really nice.

You can produce test result in html format:

cucumber features -f html > somefilename.html

Ruby 1.8.7-p248 has been released

Ruby 1.8.7-p249 for linux has been released.
The changelog shows mainly just bug fixes.
You can get the source code from http://ftp.ruby-lang.org/pub/ruby/
For windows binaries, you can get it from http://ftp.ruby-lang.org/pub/ruby/binaries/mswin32/ruby-1.8.7-p248-i386-mswin32.zip

For ruby enterprise edition, I have checked github, but apparently no much progress on that yet.
http://github.com/FooBarWidget/rubyenterpriseedition187-248

Autofocus form with prototype

How to make a web page autofocus using prototype

1. include js on header:

hasClassApplied = function(element, classname
  {
    if (element != undefined && (Element.classNames(element) != undefined || Element.classNames(element) != null))
    {return Element.classNames(element).include(classname);}
    return false;
  }

 focusFirstPageInput = function(excludeFormClassname)
  {
    for (i = 0; i < document.forms.length; i++)
    {
      if (!hasClassApplied(document.forms[i], excludeFormClassname))
      {
        focusFirstFormInput(document.forms[i]);  
        return;
      }
    }
  }

 focusFirstFormInput = function(form)
  {
    for (i = 0; i < form.length; i++)
    {
      if (form[i].type != "hidden" && form[i].type != "submit" && form[i].type != "button")
      {
        if (!form[i].disabled)
        {
          Field.activate(form[i]);
          return;
        }
      }
    }  

2. on the body tag, include on onload:

<body onload="focusFirstPageInput('')></body>