Nifty Templates

A collection of templates to DRY up your Rails project creation.

Description

Nifty Templates is a recipe collection for developers who prefer building and maintaining their own library of Rails templates. It's based on the awesome RailsWizard which you should definitely check out first if you're new to Rails templates and/or just want to get started quickly.

The default template installs gems that I rarely start a Rails project without, so if you find some of your favorites there, the recipes could be a nice foundation for you to build upon. I created Nifty Templates to achieve two things in particular, so check if these sound like benefits to you:

Install Spork and other Guards without manually fiddling around with Guardfile and spec_helper.rb

Have a nice, readable Gemfile with gem groups so that instead of

gem "some_gem", ">= 1.2", :group => :development
gem "another_gem", :group => :development

you'll see

group :development do
  gem 'some_gem', '>= 1.2'
  gem 'another_gem'
end

Requirements

Depending on the recipes you intend to use, you may need to have these installed (some commands are OS X specific):

gem install request-log-analyzer reek
gem install powder && powder install
brew install graphviz imagemagick phantomjs

Here we used Homebrew but any package manager will do.

Nifty Templates have been successfully tested with the following setup:

Ruby: 2.0.0
Rails: 4.0.0
Mac OS X: 10.9
Growl: 1.2.2
Heroku stack: Cedar

There is also a Rails 3.2 branch for those interested.

If you're having problems, first check that your database is up and running. Secondly, if you use Growl and your version differs from mine, you'll need to edit the recipe accordingly (I had to lock the gem version on my system).

Installation

You can use the repo directly or clone it locally:

git clone https://github.com/kimlindholm/nifty-templates.git

Usage

Edit default.rb by first commenting out all recipes and add the ones you need. I suggest testing step 3 after each added recipe.
Inside the same file, edit preferences (see below) to match your system and personal likings.
Create a new Rails app inside your project directory using the default template:
```
rails new <app_name> -T -m nifty-templates/default.rb
```
(Option -T skips creating unnecessary Test::Unit files)
You can apply recipes to an existing project as well. Inside your app directory:
```
rake rails:template LOCATION=../nifty-templates/utilities.rb
```
If you get error "Could not find gem...", try running bundle install.

Preferences

database: "postgresql", "oracle", "mysql", "sqlite3", "frontbase" or "ibm_db"
create_database: Create database automatically? true or false
unicorn_workers: The amount of Unicorn worker processes, 2-4 are sensible defaults
ruby_version: If you're using RVM and want to force a specific Ruby version, define it here
gemset: If you're using RVM and want to force a specific gemset, define it here
doorcode: 3-6 digit PIN code to protect your app in production or staging, default is 12345
heroku_name: App name in Heroku, default value attaches a random number, e.g. my-new-app-259
heroku_ruby_version: Instruct Heroku to use a specific Ruby version
heroku_staging: Create a staging deployment, e.g. my-new-app-259-staging? true or false

Don't worry about options you don't need, simply omit a recipe and related preferences will be ignored.

Workflow with Default Template

Here's my workflow on OS X using Pow and Heroku.

From a terminal, change to your project directory.

Assuming app name MyNewApp, create a new project:

rails new my-new-app -T -m nifty-templates/default.rb

Change to your app directory and start Guard: bundle exec guard.
Command rake app:browser opens all project tabs in default browser (OS X only):
- http://my-new-app.dev (Application)
- http://my-new-app.dev/coverage (Test coverage)
- http://my-new-app.dev/brakeman (Security report)
- http://my-new-app.dev:3500 (JavaScript tests)
- http://my-new-app.dev/metrics (Rails Best Practices report)
- http://my-new-app.dev/performance.html (Request-log-analyzer report)
- http://doc.dev:8000/docs/frames/ (YARD documentation)
Two of the tabs are initially empty. Create a Rails Best Practices report with rake app:metrics and Request-log-analyzer report with rake app:performance.
Run reek app lib to find any code smells that require refactoring.
Once you have added some models, rake erd creates an Entity-Relationship Diagram, ERD.pdf.
Push changes to Heroku with rake [production|staging] deploy, type heroku open and enter the PIN code you set in preferences.

kimlindholm / nifty-templates