LipsiADMIN

Padrino: Framework with Admin

d.dagostino@lipsiasoft.com (Davide D'Agostino) — Fri, 02 Apr 2010 00:46:26 +0200

We are pleased to announce the official web site of Padrino Framework: www.padrinorb.com

In this site you can find a blog tutorial with 12 minute screencast, a lot of guides and much more...

Don't forget that Padrino is the first Ruby Framework with a bundled admin.

Some links:

Padrino Framework

d.dagostino@lipsiasoft.com (Davide D'Agostino) — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 14:46:08 +0100

Worth noting here that LipsiADMIN is still undergoing bug fixes and occasional development.

However, I want to point out that this project is essentially made obsolete by another project that I am working on (with Nathan and others) called the Padrino Framework

Padrino is definately the place to look in the future for a modular extension to Sinatra.

Note that Padrino contains everything from LipsiADMIN but is far more powerful and larger in scope.

Padrino is still early in development but is worth taking a look at.

The idea for Padrino is to start with Sinatra and follow that philosophy but to super-charge the functionality adding support for: development code reloading, advanced route definitions, I18n localization support, baked-in orm support, baked-in code generators, multi-app support, admin dashboard, authentication logic, view helpers, and more.

With Padrino Admin more simple manage uploads (with upload progress) and habtm/belongs_to relations in ExtJS windows.

Try Padrino and have fun with Admin requires few seconds, follow this: http://gist.github.com/307591

Feel free to use LipsiADMIN for now but if you enjoy this and get curious, please contribute to Padrino or at least let us know what you think!

See more on: http://padrino.github.com

ScreenCast - Basic Concepts

d.dagostino@lipsiasoft.com (Davide D'Agostino) — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 15:00:00 +0100

In this screen cast we demonstrate some basic concepts how to use LipsiADMIN as a scaffold for the backend of your rails app.

In particular we focus on:

Start a new project and attach LipsiADMIN
Add new models and scaffold them
Add some relations for explain how we can easily make associations with LipsiADMIN
Create a editable grid
Create and Manage roles and permission

In this screencast we use Rails 2.3.5, ExtJS 3.1, Osx Snow Leopard, TextMate.

Lipsiadmin 5.1.1

d.dagostino@lipsiasoft.com (Davide D'Agostino) — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 21:00:00 +0100

We release on Github , on Gemcutter and on RubyForge a new version of LipsiADMIN.

The most important thing is that this 5.1.1 version include ExtJS 3.1+

The second important thing is that now LipsiADMIN grids save in the state of the search so useful when we do refresh.

Changelog

Updated ExtJS to 3.1+ Version
Updated ExtJS CSS according to new 3.1 Version
Fixed a small problem with ExtJS and our standard.css with inline forms.
Updated Backend.js now it's more clean and fast.
Grid now can store the value of search field in a grid. Useful when refreshing.

ExtJS 3.1 Released

d.dagostino@lipsiasoft.com (Davide D'Agostino) — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 15:00:00 +0100

Yesterday ExtJS team release a new version of their beautiful library. Here the Blog Post.

Our team is working in a new version of LipsiADMIN that include it. With new exciting features!!

Here the change log of ExtJS 3.1

Internet Explorer Memory Improvements
Optimized Layouts
EventManager Refactor
Improved Flexibility
New TreeGrid Extension
Locking Grid Columns
Grid Column Grouping Plugin

Summary

With 3.1 we took a deep look into optimizing many algorithms to improve IE support, overall performance, and introducing new functionality. We think these enhancements will greatly improve your user’s productivity while supporting faster, more robust applications. We are also still hard at work on the Ext Designer, which we hope to debut in the next few months. Make sure to update your version today and check out the new features for yourself.

Lipsiadmin 5.1.0

d.dagostino@lipsiasoft.com (Davide D'Agostino) — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 14:30:00 +0100

We release on Github , on Gemcutter and on RubyForge a new version of LipsiADMIN.

This release only fix a problem with title helpers when a string contains dot chars.

Lipsiadmin 5.0.9

d.dagostino@lipsiasoft.com (Davide D'Agostino) — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 20:30:00 +0100

We have updated Lipsiadmin.

Here the small changelog:

Fixed an error in lipsiadmin default locales
Added Template Paths for grids and custom template for grid [Ragunalth]
Added German Translations [Peter]
Aliased Methods named_scope search to ext_search and paginate to ext_paginate to avoid conflicts.
Updated the Readme
Removed an unusued back_to helper
Fixed a bug with simple_error_messages_for [joe1chen]
Fixed a bug in generators on Windows [Paolo Angelini]

New Way to Write JSON

d.dagostino@lipsiasoft.com (Davide D'Agostino) — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 15:43:26 +0100

I thinked a lot in this days a new way for write girds and json configurations. See some examples and tell us your opinion.

Ruby Version (the version included in LipsiADMIN):

bool_fn = "function(v, p, r){ var tmp = (v!=undefined && v!=''); return Ext.util.Format.boolRenderer(tmp, p, r) }".to_l

@column_store = column_store_for Order do |cm|
  cm.add :custom_id
  cm.add :invoice_name
  cm.add "name",                                             :align  => :center, :dataIndex => :order_from
  cm.add :package_weigth,                                    :hidden => true,    :align    => :center, :sortable => false
  cm.add "order_items.first.delivery_name", "Spedizione",    :hidden => true,    :dataIndex => "orders.order_items.delivery_name", :sortable => false
  cm.add :payment_name,                                      :align  => :center, :sortable => false
  cm.add "ecommerce.name",  "Ecommerce",                     :align  => :center, :sortable => false
  cm.add "ebay_order.id",               "Cod. Ebay Ord.",    :hidden => true, :sortable => false
  cm.add :total,            :renderer => :eur_money,  :align => :right,  :align  => :right, :sortable => false
  cm.add "has_invoice?",    :renderer => :boolean,    :align => :center, :editor => { :xtype => :checkbox }, 
                            :sortable => false, :header => "Fatturato", :name => "order[invoice_attribute][date]", 
                            :dataIndex => "orders.has_invoice"
  cm.add :shipped,          :renderer => :boolean,    :align => :center, :editor => { :xtype => :checkbox }, :sortable => false
  cm.add :updated_at,       :renderer => :datetime,   :align => :right,  :hidden => true
end

Yaml Version:

renderers:
  boolean: &boolean_renderer
    renderer: | __js__
      function(v, p, r){ 
        var tmp = (v!=undefined && v!='');
        return Ext.util.Format.boolRenderer(tmp, p, r) 
      }

editors:
  checkbox: &checkbox
    xtype: checkbox

columns:
  - id: custom_id
  - id: invoice_name
  - id: name
    dataIndex: order_from
    align: center
  - id: package_weigth
    hidden: true
    align: center
    sortable: false
  - id: delivery_name
    dataIndex: order_items.first.delivery_name
    header: Spedizione
  - id: payment_name
    align: center
    sortable: false
  - id: ecommerce_name
    dataIndex: ecommerce.name
    header: Ecommerce
    align: center
    sortable: false
  - id: ebay_order_id
    dataIndex: ebay_order.id
    header: Cod. Ebay Ord.
    hidden: true
    sortable: false
  - id: total
    renderer: eur_money
    align: right
    sortable: true
  - id: has_invoice
    method: has_invoice?
    renderer: boolean
    align: center
    editor: *checkbox
    sortable: false
    header: Fatturato
    name: "order[invoice_attribute][date]"
  - id: shipped
    renderer: boolean
    align: center
  - id: paid_time
    <<: *boolean_renderer
  - id: updated_at
    renderer: datetime
    align: right
    hidden: true

My choice is yaml version, more concise and more clear.

And you? What do you prefer?

Extend ExtJs grids

d.dagostino@lipsiasoft.com (Davide D'Agostino) — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 19:00:09 +0200

Mirec ask us:

I created some custom model attributes in model.rb file, but i found no way to include those in the list view.

Whatever i try it gives me translation error.

Is this implemented, or is there a workaround?

For this reason we want show you how you can easy extend the ExtJs GridPanel.

Case:

# models/account.rb
class Account < ActiveRecord::Base
  belongs_to :category
  ... 
  def full_name
    "#{name} #{surname}".strip
  end
end

So:

> Account.first.category.name => "my fun category"
> Account.first.full_name => "name surname"

Then:

# controllers/accounts_controller.rb
class Backend::AccountsController < BackendController

  def index
    params[:limit] ||= 50
    
    @column_store = column_store_for EbayEntry do |cm|
            # Method           # Header      #Options
      cm.add "category.name",  "Category",   :sortable => true
      cm.add "full_name",      "Full Name",  :sortable => true, 
                                             :dataIndex => [:name, :surname]
      ...
      cm.add :age
      cm.add :sex
      cm.add :other_column_of_my_model
    end

    respond_to do |format|
      format.js 
      format.json do
        render :json => @column_store.store_data(params, :joins => :category)
      end
    end
end

Considerations

If you quote something in the column_store (like: "full_name"), our extjs controller try to do some like: mymodel.send(:mycustom_method)

In column "Full Name" we have specified :dataIndex because in this way the integrated search of our grid can query the database like:

WHERE accounts.name LIKE '%name%' OR accounts.surname LIKE '%name%'

We also be able to make a custom dataIndex like: dataIndex => "accounts.mycustomfield", so the query will be:

WHERE accounts.mycustomfield LIKE '%name%'

Last important thing was: cm.add "category.name"

Our Ext controller is intelligent and automatically create a correct dataIndex in our case: categories.name

The dataIndex is also the field of a sql query, so for that is also necessary join or include the category table, we do that: @column_store.store_data(params, :joins => :category)

The final result is:

SELECT *
  FROM accounts INNER JOIN categories ON account.category_id = categories.id
WHERE 
  accounts.name LIKE '%name%' OR 
  accounts.surname LIKE '%name%' OR 
  categories.name LIKE '%name%'

So remember, with quotation ("mycustom_method") you can call any method of your model, with dataIndex you can specify the field used for ordination and search

A Global .gitignore

d.dagostino@lipsiasoft.com (Davide D'Agostino) — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 11:30:34 +0200

Always we need a .gitignore in our repository.

In 99% of cases is always the same

So we can just write a time. Then always ignore those files system-wide.

See how

$ vim ~/.gitignore

and put

*.cache
*.log
*.pid
tmp/**/*
.DS_Store
db/cstore/**
db/sphinx/**
public/uploads/*

Then global ignore those file. From your console:

git config --global core.excludesfile ~/.gitignore

Lipsiadmin 5.0.8

d.dagostino@lipsiasoft.com (Davide D'Agostino) — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 07:31:30 +0200

We have updated Lipsiadmin on GitHub and also on RubyForge

Here the small changelog:

Changed the rake lipsiadmin:update:javascripts now update also backend.js.erb and locale.js.erb
Added a new frontend helper method for resize images on the fly: see api docs
Added new locales for rails 2.3.4
Fix stack overflow with prototype 1.6.1 on IE6/IE7

Lipsiadmin 5.0.7

d.dagostino@lipsiasoft.com (Davide D'Agostino) — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 07:29:28 +0200

We have updated Lipsiadmin on GitHub and also on RubyForge

This version contains only few bug fix

Fix some compatibility issues on IE6+
Fix stackoverflow with prototype

Thumbs on the Fly

d.dagostino@lipsiasoft.com (Davide D'Agostino) — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 06:28:17 +0200

When our staff build the frontend of a site is always necessary redefine the thumbs of an Image.

99% of our customers change the size or the final layout is a little different

It's true our attachment table can define thumbs and we can reprocess them like showed in this article

But if don't want every time add a new line in our code and reprocess all of them?

If the image did't reside on our server?

image_tag("/path/to/my/image.png", :size => "180#")

image_tag("http://www.remote.com/image.png", :size => "180x180!")

Create on the fly (and once time) a new image in our public folder

For all this reasons I create a small but usefull helper

The code is pretty documented

require 'open-uri'
def image_tag(source, options = {})
  options.symbolize_keys!
  # We set here the upload path
  upload_path = "uploads/thumbs"
  # Now we can create a thumb on the fly
  if options[:size] || options[:width] || options[:height]
    begin
      geometry   = options[:size]
      geometry ||= [options[:width], options[:height]].join("x")
      filename   = File.basename(source)
      # Checking if we have just process them 
      # We don't want to do the same job two times
      if File.exist?("#{Rails.root}/public/#{upload_path}/#{geometry}_#{filename}")
        options[:src] = "/#{upload_path}/#{geometry}_#{filename}"
      else # We need to create the thumb
        FileUtils.mkdir("#{Rails.root}/tmp") unless File.exist?("#{Rails.root}/tmp")
        # We create a temp file of the original file
        # Notice that we can download them from an url! 
        # So this Image can reside anywhere on the web
        if source =~ /#{URI.regexp}/
          tmp = File.new("#{Rails.root}/tmp/#{filename}", "w")
          tmp.write open(source).read
          tmp.close
        else # If the image is local
          tmp = File.open(File.join("#{Rails.root}/public", 
                          path_to_image(source).gsub(/\?+\d*/, "")))
        end
        # Now we generate a thumb with our Thumbnail Processor (based on Paperclip)
        thumb = Lipsiadmin::Attachment::Thumbnail.new(tmp, 
                                                      :geometry => geometry).make
        # We check if our dir exists
        unless File.exist?("#{Rails.root}/public/#{upload_path}")
          FileUtils.mkdir("#{Rails.root}/public/#{upload_path}")
        end
        # Now we put the image in our public path
        new_file_path = "#{Rails.root}/public/#{upload_path}/#{geometry}_#{filename}"
        File.open(new_file_path, "w") do |f|
          f.write thumb.read
        end
        # Finally we return the new image path
        options[:src] = "/#{upload_path}/#{geometry}_#{filename}"
      end
    rescue Exception => e
      options[:src] = path_to_image(source)
    ensure
      File.delete(tmp.path)   if tmp   && source =~ /#{URI.regexp}/
      File.delete(thumb.path) if thumb
    end
  end
  options[:src] ||= path_to_image(source)
  options[:alt] ||= File.basename(options[:src], '.*').
                    split('.').first.to_s.capitalize

  if mouseover = options.delete(:mouseover)
    options[:onmouseover] = "this.src='#{image_path(mouseover)}'"
    options[:onmouseout]  = "this.src='#{image_path(options[:src])}'"
  end

  tag("img", options)
end

Lipsiadmin 5.0.6

d.dagostino@lipsiasoft.com (Davide D'Agostino) — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 08:45:23 +0200

We have updated Lipsiadmin on GitHub and also on RubyForge

This version contains only a bug fix in views/backend/base/index

For update you can simply do

$ sudo gem update

Lipsiadmin 5.0.5

d.dagostino@lipsiasoft.com (Davide D'Agostino) — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 11:35:42 +0200

We have updated Lipsiadmin on GitHub and also on RubyForge

This version contains only few bug fixes

For update you can simply do

$ sudo gem update