MerbMax
=======
MerbMax is a collection of little nifty plugins for merb
Why is this one gem?
===================
Everyone else is breaking big projects up into a bunch of different gems for ease of swapping things out, so
why am I putting this in one gem?
_It's easier for me to maintain this way_
Plus, everything in this projects is 'opt-in' so it's no big deal. If the few extra files worry you that you aren't using, you_are_nuts.
Current Plugins
===================
* Coerce
* Helpers
* Roles
* Helpers
* Meta
Plugins I'm gutting out of hacks in our local merb branch over the next few days
==================
* Threshold - Track access to controller/action in the seamlessly session, and limit access
* Wait - Force a user to 'wait' out threshold exceptions
* Recaptcha - Force a user to solve a captcha to continue use beyond threshold
* SessionExclusions - Session keys that will be stored as unmarshaled columns for your querying pleasure
* SessionNoMarshalMemcached - a MemCache session store that doesn't marshal at all, great for tiny sessions
* RepositoryPerResource - Set a DM Repository at the Controller level
* EnhancedEnvironments (No static references)
* .development?
* .production? should test /production/i (in case of productionWww, etc)
* merge_env, better name? & keep track of what was merged into an environment
* acts_like?(:development) -> Is this that environment, or was that environment merged in?
* Pagination
* VokleAPI Pattern (ad nauseam)
Usage
=====
Coerce
------
Coerces values in the params hash before the controller dispatches the action. There are some helpers in coerce/helpers.
require 'merb_max'
require 'merb_max/coerce'
require 'merb_max/coerce/helpers'
class People < Merb::Controller # People Controller
coerce(:id){|_id_| _id_.to_i } # Will convert that String representation of your ID to a integer
# There are a few baked into coerce/helpers
coerce_to_i(:id) # as above
# Got stupid 'on' and 'true' values from HTML and Flash checkboxes?
coerce_str_to_bool(:my_boolean_option)
# They also take values to pass to their underlying before filter
coerce(:name, :only => [:show]){|_name| "Hey, welcome to the 'show' action, #{_name}"}
end
Roles
-----
Allow merb instances to assume roles, i.e. :www, :api and optimize the provides/filters for that role. There are a few helpers available in roles/helpers
Role values don't "mean anything." You can call a role :www, or :api, or :duck_crackers or :whatever floats your :boat.
Where the magic comes in is in your Controllers, because you can optionally call "before filters" and interact with Merb's Provides API.
The point of the 'roles' plugin is to allow you to put all your Web and API code in once project (the models are the same, access is controlled the same way), but
you don't necessarily want your WWW servers doing things the way your API servers are doing them, right?
Again, anything you can do at the Controller level in a controller, you can do in one of 'role_config' blocks and it'll only be handled
by a server that was booted in that environment role.
require 'merb_max'
require 'merb_max/roles'
require 'merb_max/roles/helpers'
# in development.rb, production.rb, environment.rb, etc
# I create alternate environments called productionWww productionApi and set this accordingly.
#
Merb::Config[:role] = :api # This server should assume the 'api' role
# in the People Controller
class People < Merb::Controller
role_config(:api){
no_ui #no_ui is a helper that removes the :edit and :new actions
# These could be YOUR before filters, whatevs.
before :my_super_secure_verify_api_method
before :track_api_usage
only_provides :js # XML is so early turn of the century ;)
}
role_config(:www){
#this is available in the merb_max/meta plugin. CROSS PROMOTION SON!
meta(:keywords => "This site is full of stunning people")
before :verify_user_is_logged_in
}
end
class AdminPanel < Merb::Controller
# Dont respond to requests to /adminpanel for API requests (unsupported is in helpers)
role_config(:api){ unsupported }
end
Meta
----
Easy access to keywords, title, and description meta tags from inside an action, so you can get your SEO (search engine optimization) on on a request by request basis.
Provides meta controller (inheritably) on a controller-by-controller and action-by-action basis
### ... from app/controllers/application.rb
class Application < Merb::Controller
meta :title => "My default page title",
:description => "My default page description",
:keywords => "cool, default keywords, web 2.0"
end
### ... from app/views/layout/application.html.erb
# meta tags can be output via 'meta' or 'meta :tagname'
# using 'meta' will output all the meta data in html tags like
<html>
<head>
<%= meta %>
<!-- Would render;
<title>My default page title</title>
<meta name="keywords" content="cool, default keywords, web 2.0" />
<meta name="description" content="My default page description" />
-->
</head>
...
</html>
# optionally you can get the value of a particular tag like so:
<html>
<head>
<title><%= meta :title %></title>
<meta name="keywords" content="<%= meta :keywords %>" />
<meta name="description" content="<%= meta :description %>" />
</head>
<body>
...
</body>
</html>
### ... the tags can be overriden on a per controller or per action basis.
class ControllerA < Merb::Controller
meta :title => "This is controller a"
def action_a
meta :title => "this is action a", :keywords => "action a, action"
render
# :title => "this is action a"
# :keywords => "action a, action"
# :description => "My default controller description"
end
def action_b
render
# :title => "This is controller a"
# :description => "My default page description"
# :keywords => "cool, default keywords, web 2.0"
end
end
Don't Forget
============
You can combine this plugins to do cool things. Like only threshold your API servers, and only add Meta Tags to your HTML responses.