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Daniel Kehoe edited this page May 17, 2011 · 52 revisions

Rails 3 + Devise + RSpec + Cucumber

This is a detailed tutorial showing how to set up a Rails 3.0 or 3.1 project using Devise with RSpec and Cucumber. Devise gives you ready-made authentication and user management. RSpec is a popular alternative to the Test::Unit testing framework. Cucumber is often used with RSpec for Behaviour Driven Development.

Similar Examples and Tutorials

If you’d like to use the Mongoid ORM with the MongoDB datastore instead of ActiveRecord and a SQLite database, see the rails3-mongoid-devise example app and tutorial. Mongoid makes development quicker without schemas or migrations. The rails3-mongoid-devise example app and tutorial shows how to set up Devise and Mongoid with RSpec and Cucumber.

See a list of similar Rails examples, tutorials, and starter apps.

Any issues? Please create a GitHub issue.

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Follow the project on Twitter: http://twitter.com/rails_apps. Tweet some praise if you like what you’ve found.

Join the email list (low volume, announcements only) for project updates and my tips about Rails resources.

Tutorial Tutorial

This tutorial documents each step that you must follow to create this application. Every step is documented concisely, so a complete beginner can create this application without any additional knowledge. However, no explanation is offered for any of the steps, so if you are a beginner, you’re advised to look for an introduction to Rails elsewhere. See a list of Rails books and references for recommended reading.

Creating the Application

Option One

Cut and paste the code.

To create the application, you can cut and paste the code from the tutorial into your own files. It’s a bit tedious and error-prone but you’ll have a good opportunity to examine the code closely.

Option Two

Use the ready-made application template to generate the code.

You can use an application template to generate a new Rails app with code that closely matches the tutorial. You’ll find an application template for this tutorial in the fortuity/rails3-application-templates repository.

Use the command:

$ rails new APP_NAME -m https://github.com/fortuity/rails3-application-templates/raw/master/rails3-devise-rspec-cucumber-template.rb

For Rails 3.0, add the -T -J flags to skip Test::Unit files and Prototype files. (These flags are not needed for Rails 3.1.)

This creates a new Rails app (with the APP_NAME you provide) on your computer. It includes everything in the example app. You can read through the tutorial with the code already on your computer.

You MUST be using Rails 3.0.4 or newer. Generating a Rails application from an “HTTPS” URL does not work in Rails 3.0.3 and earlier versions.

Option Three

Use the rails_apps_composer gem to create a reusuable application template.

This is optimal if you are creating a “starter app” based on this example app but wish to customize the code for your own preferences.

Each step in this tutorial has a corresponding application template recipe from the rails_apps_composer recipes repository. You can create your own application template using the template recipes. To do so, download the rails_apps_composer project, customize recipes as needed, and follow the instructions to create a reusable application template file.

Assumptions

Before beginning this tutorial, you need to install

  • The Ruby language (version 1.8.7 or 1.9.2)
  • Rails (3.0 or 3.1)

I recommend installing rvm, the Ruby Version Manager, to manage multiple versions of Rails.

Check that appropriate versions of Ruby and Rails are installed in your development environment:
$ ruby -v
$ rails -v

Create the Rails Application

Open a terminal, navigate to a folder where you have rights to create files, and type:

$ rails new rails3-devise-rspec-cucumber

NOTE: For Rails 3.0, add the -T flag to skip Test::Unit files since you will be using RSpec instead.

NOTE: For Rails 3.0, add the -J flag to skip Prototype files if you plan to use jQuery for your Javascript framework.

You may give the app a different name if you are building it for your own use. For this tutorial, we’ll assume the name is “rails3-devise-rspec-cucumber.”

This will create a Rails application that uses a SQLite database for data storage.

After you create the application, switch to its folder to continue work directly in that application:

$ cd rails3-devise-rspec-cucumber

Please Remember: Edit the README

If you’re open sourcing the app on GitHub, please edit the README file to add a description of the app and your contact info. Changing the README is important if you’re using a clone of the example app. I’ve been mistaken (and contacted) as the author of apps that are copied from my example.

Set Up Source Control (Git)

If you are creating an application template, this step uses the git recipe from the rails_apps_composer repository.

If you’re creating an app for deployment into production, you’ll want to set up a source control repository at this point. If you are building a throw-away app for your own education, you may skip this step.

Check that git is installed on your computer:

$ git version

Rails 3 has already created a .gitignore file for you. You may want to modify it:

.bundle
db/*.sqlite3
log/*.log
tmp/
.DS_Store

Initialize git and check in your first commit:

$ git init
$ git add .
$ git commit -am 'initial commit'

You can check your commit status at any time with:

$ git status

Save it to GitHub

Use a remote source control repository if you want an offsite copy of your work or you plan to share your work with others.

We’ll assume you have an account at GitHub. Check that your GitHub account is set up properly:

$ ssh git(at)github.com

Go to GitHub and create a new empty repository (http://github.com/repositories/new) into which you can push your local git repo.

Add GitHub as a remote repository for your project and push your local project to the remote repository:

$ git remote add origin git(at)github.com:YOUR_GITHUB_ACCOUNT/YOUR_PROJECT_NAME.git
$ git push origin master

At each stage of completion, you should check your code into your local repository:

$ git commit -am "some helpful comment"

and then push it to the remote repository:

$ git push origin master

Set Up Gems

About Required Gems

The application uses the following gems. I recommend checking for newer versions of these gems before proceeding:

The app has been tested with the indicated versions. If you are able to build the app with a newer gem, please create an issue on GitHub and I will update the app.

Set up Your Gemfile

For Rails 3.1, edit the Gemfile file to look like this:

source 'http://rubygems.org'

gem 'rails', '>= 3.1.0.beta1'
gem 'sqlite3'
gem 'sass'
gem 'coffee-script'
gem 'uglifier'
gem 'jquery-rails'
gem 'devise', '>= 1.3.4'
gem 'rspec-rails', '>= 2.6.0', :group => [:development, :test]
group :test do
gem 'turn', :require => false
  gem 'factory_girl_rails', ">= 1.1.beta1"
  gem 'cucumber-rails', ">= 0.4.1"
  gem 'capybara', ">= 0.4.1.2"
  gem 'database_cleaner', '>= 0.6.7'
end

For Rails 3.0, edit the Gemfile file to look like this:

source 'http://rubygems.org'

gem 'rails', '>= 3.0.7'
gem 'sqlite3'
gem 'devise', '>= 1.3.4'
gem 'rspec-rails', '>= 2.6.0', :group => [:development, :test]
group :test do
  gem 'factory_girl_rails', ">= 1.1.beta1"
  gem 'cucumber-rails', ">= 0.4.1"
  gem 'capybara', ">= 0.4.1.2"
  gem 'database_cleaner', '>= 0.6.7'
end

Install the Required Gems

Install the required gems on your computer:

$ bundle install

You can check which gems are installed on your computer with:

$ gem list --local

Keep in mind that you have installed these gems locally. When you deploy the app to another server, the same gems (and versions) must be available.

Adding jQuery to Rails 3.0

If you are creating an application template, this step uses the jquery recipe from the rails_apps_composer repository.

Rails 3.1 uses jQuery by default so no addiitonal effort is required.

This example application doesn’t make use of jQuery. But many Rails developers prefer it as an alternative to the Prototype Javascript framework so instructions are included here for Rails 3.0 projects.

How to Manually Install jQuery

Here’s how to manually install jQuery.

If you used the -J flag when you ran rails new the Prototype Javascript files won’t be there. If not, remove the Prototype Javascript files from the public/javascripts directory:

  • controls.js
  • dragdrop.js
  • effects.js
  • prototype.js

Download jQuery and rails.js and place them in the public/javascripts directory.

cd public/javascripts
curl -o rails.js https://github.com/rails/jquery-ujs/raw/master/src/rails.js
curl -o jquery.js http://code.jquery.com/jquery-1.6.min.js

If you used the -J flag when you ran rails new the following statement will be uncommented and you don’t need to do anything. Otherwise, uncomment the following statement in the config/application.rb file (or add it if it is missing):

config.action_view.javascript_expansions[:defaults] = %w(jquery rails)

This configures the template helper javascript_include_tag :defaults to generate SCRIPT tags to load jQuery and the rails.js script.

How to Automatically Install jQuery

If you used the -J flag when you ran rails new it is best to manually install jQuery as described above.

As an alternative to manual installation of jQuery, you can add a gem and run a generator command.

# Gemfile
gem 'jquery-rails', '>= 0.2.7'

Run the generator command (add --ui if you want the optional jQuery UI library):

$ bundle install
$ rails generate jquery:install

This will remove the Prototype files from the public/javascripts directory, download jQuery files, and download the rails.js file. Be sure to choose to overwrite the rails.js file (or remove it first).

Note: If you used the -J flag when you ran rails new (using the “-J” flag to eliminate the Prototype files) then in the config/application.rb file the statement config.action_view.javascript_expansions[:defaults] = %w() is not commented out and the jquery-rails gem lib/jquery-rails.rb file cannot override config.action_view.javascript_expansions[:defaults] to include the jquery files and you’ll get an error “No expansion found for :defaults” when you run your app. See this issue for more information. The solution is to comment out the statement config.action_view.javascript_expansions[:defaults] = %w() in the config/application.rb file (it takes precedence over the jquery-rails gem lib/jquery-rails.rb file).

Configuration for Haml

If you are creating an application template, this step uses the haml recipe from the rails_apps_composer repository.

In this example, we’ll use the default “ERB” Rails template engine. Optionally, you can use another template engine, such as Haml. You’ll need extra gems in the Gemfile for Haml:

gem 'haml', '>= 3.1.1'
gem 'haml-rails', '>= 0.3.4', :group => :development

Run the gem bundler command:

$ bundle install

With the haml-rails gem, there is no need to modify the application.rb file to accommodate Haml. Any time you generate a controller or scaffold, you’ll get Haml instead of ERB templates. And when your Rails application loads, Haml will be loaded and initialized.

Adding RSpec for Unit Testing

If you are creating an application template, this step uses the rspec recipe from the rails_apps_composer repository.

Install RSpec and Related Gems

Use the gem rspec-rails to set up the app for RSpec.

You should have the following gems in your Gemfile file:

gem 'rspec-rails', '>= 2.6.0', :group => [:development, :test]
group :test do
  gem 'factory_girl_rails', ">= 1.1.beta1"
end

The gem rspec-rails needs to be in the :development group (as well as the :test group) to expose generators and rake tasks during development.

Install the required gems on your computer:

$ bundle install

Generate RSpec

Use the rspec-rails generator to set up files needed for RSpec:

$ rails generate rspec:install

The rspec-rails generator creates the files:

  • .rspec
  • spec/spec_helper.rb

You can remove the test folder (it is not needed for RSpec):

$ rm -rf test/

Add Factory Girl for Test Objects

The Factory Girl gem is used to create default model objects for tests. For example, if a controller action requires finding a User object before displaying a “show” page, Factory Girl will create a user just for a test of the controller. You’ll need gem 'factory_girl_rails', :group => :test in your Gemfile.

You’ll need a spec/factories.rb file to contain the factory definitions for any default objects used for testing. You can create one like this:

require 'factory_girl'

Factory.define :user do |u|
  u.name 'Test User'
  u.email '[email protected]'
  u.password 'please'
end

Add Devise Test Helpers

Using Devise, your controllers will often include before_filter :authenticate_user! to limit access to signed-in users. Your tests will fail unless a default user is created and logs in before each test runs. Devise provides test helpers to make it simple to create and log in a default user.

Create a file spec/support/devise.rb:

RSpec.configure do |config|
  config.include Devise::TestHelpers, :type => :controller
end

Now you can write controller specs that set up a signed-in user before tests are run.

Run RSpec

Run rake -T to check that rake tasks for RSpec are available.

Run rake db:migrate to create a db/schema.rb file so rake spec can run successfully.

You should be able to run rake spec to run all specs. If you haven’t written any specs, you’ll see the message “No examples matching ./spec//_spec.rb could be found”.

You can copy the files from the example spec directory to use our ready-made specs.

cd spec
curl -o factories.rb https://github.com/railsapps/rails3-devise-rspec-cucumber/raw/master/spec/factories.rb
mkdir controllers
cd controllers
curl -o home_controller_spec.rb https://github.com/railsapps/rails3-devise-rspec-cucumber/raw/master/spec/controllers/home_controller_spec.rb
curl -o users_controller_spec.rb https://github.com/railsapps/rails3-devise-rspec-cucumber/raw/master/spec/controllers/users_controller_spec.rb
cd ../
mkdir models
cd models
curl -o user_spec.rb https://github.com/railsapps/rails3-devise-rspec-cucumber/raw/master/spec/models/user_spec.rb

You’ll have to complete the tutorial before the specs will run successfully.

Add Cucumber for Behavior Driven Development

If you are creating an application template, this step uses the cucumber recipe from the rails_apps_composer repository.

Use the gem cucumber-rails to set up the app for Cucumber.

You should have the following gems in your Gemfile file:

group :test do
  gem 'cucumber-rails', ">= 0.4.1"
  gem 'capybara', ">= 0.4.1.2"
  gem 'database_cleaner', '>= 0.6.7'
end

Install the required gems on your computer:

$ bundle install

Use the cucumber-rails generator to set up files needed for Cucumber:

$ rails generate cucumber:install --capybara --rspec

The -–capybara option specifies Capybara instead of the default Webrat for acceptance testing. The -–rspec option enables RSpec matchers for your step definitions.

Database Cleaner for Cucumber

To reset your application database to a pristine state during testing, Cucumber makes use of Database Cleaner. The file features/support/env.rb is already set up to use Database Cleaner:

begin
  DatabaseCleaner.strategy = :transaction
rescue NameError
  raise "You need to add database_cleaner to your Gemfile (in the :test group) if you wish to use it."
end

Run Cucumber

Run rake -T to check that rake tasks for Cucumber are available.

You should be able to run rake cucumber (or more simply, cucumber) to run all Cucumber scenarios and steps. If you haven’t written any Cucumber scenarios and steps, you’ll see the message “0 scenarios, 0 steps”.

You can copy the files from the example features directory to use our ready-made Cucumber scenarios.

cd features/step_definitions
curl -o user_steps.rb https://github.com/railsapps/rails3-devise-rspec-cucumber/raw/master/features/step_definitions/user_steps.rb
cd ../support
curl -o paths.rb https://github.com/railsapps/rails3-devise-rspec-cucumber/raw/master/features/support/paths.rb
cd ../
mkdir users
cd users
curl -o sign_in.feature https://github.com/railsapps/rails3-devise-rspec-cucumber/raw/master/features/users/sign_in.feature
curl -o sign_out.feature https://github.com/railsapps/rails3-devise-rspec-cucumber/raw/master/features/users/sign_out.feature
curl -o sign_up.feature https://github.com/railsapps/rails3-devise-rspec-cucumber/raw/master/features/users/sign_up.feature
curl -o user_edit.feature https://github.com/railsapps/rails3-devise-rspec-cucumber/raw/master/features/users/user_edit.feature
curl -o user_show.feature https://github.com/railsapps/rails3-devise-rspec-cucumber/raw/master/features/users/user_show.feature

You’ll have to complete the tutorial before the features will run successfully.

Test the App

You can check that your app runs properly by entering the command

$ rails server

To see your application in action, open a browser window and navigate to http://localhost:3000/. You should see the Rails default information page.

Stop the server with Control-C.

Configure ActionMailer

If you are creating an application template, this step uses the action_mailer recipe from the rails_apps_composer repository.

In its default configuration, Devise sends email messages to confirm new users and reset passwords. You’ll want to configure ActionMailer to show errors during development and suppress failures when the app is deployed to production.

Set up action_mailer in your development environment in the file

config/environments/development.rb

by changing:

# Don't care if the mailer can't send
# config.action_mailer.raise_delivery_errors = false

and adding:

# ActionMailer Config
config.action_mailer.default_url_options = { :host => 'localhost:3000' }
# A dummy setup for development - no deliveries, but logged
config.action_mailer.delivery_method = :smtp
config.action_mailer.perform_deliveries = false
config.action_mailer.raise_delivery_errors = true
config.action_mailer.default :charset => "utf-8"

Set up action_mailer in your production environment in the file

config/environments/production.rb

by adding:

config.action_mailer.default_url_options = { :host => 'yourhost.com' }
# ActionMailer Config
# Setup for production - deliveries, no errors raised
config.action_mailer.delivery_method = :smtp
config.action_mailer.perform_deliveries = true
config.action_mailer.raise_delivery_errors = false
config.action_mailer.default :charset => "utf-8"

Set Up Authentication

Set Up Configuration for Devise

If you are creating an application template, this step uses the devise recipe from the rails_apps_composer repository.

This app uses Devise for user management and authentication. Devise is at http://github.com/plataformatec/devise.

We’ve already installed the Devise gem with the $ bundle install command. Run the generator:

$ rails generate devise:install

which installs a configuration file:

config/initializers/devise.rb

and a localization file.

Generate a Model and Routes for Users

Devise can manage users and administrators separately, allowing two (or more) roles to be implemented differently. For this example, we just implement Users.

Use Devise to generate models and routes for a User:

$ rails generate devise User

Devise will modify the config/routes.rb file to add:

devise_for :users

which provides a complete set of routes for user signup and login. If you run rake routes you can see the routes that this line of code creates.

Prevent Logging of Passwords

We don’t want passwords written to our log file. In Rails 2, we would change the file

controllers/application_controller.rb

to include:

filter_parameter_logging :password, :password_confirmation

In Rails 3, this is deprecated and instead we modify the file config/application.rb to include:

config.filter_parameters += [:password, :password_confirmation]

Note that filter_parameters is an array.

Customize the Application

Enable Users to Have Names

If you are creating an application template, this step uses the add_user recipe from the rails_apps_composer repository.

By default, Devise uses an email address to identify users. We’ll add a “name” attribute as well. Your application may not require a user to provide a name. But showing you how to add a name will help you see what you need to do if you decide to make changes to the default Devise user model.

Devise created a migration file to establish the schema for the SQLite database with a migration file named something like db/migrate/xxxxxxx_devise_create_users.rb. We won’t modify the migration file. Instead we’ll add an additional migration that adds the “name” field to the User record.

rails generate migration AddNameToUsers name:string

Run rake db:migrate again to pick up the “name” field.

$ rake db:migrate

Next, we’ll modify the user model to validate the presence and uniqueness of the “name” attribute. Modify the file models/user.rb and add:

validates_presence_of :name
validates_uniqueness_of :name, :email, :case_sensitive => false

This will allow users to be created (or edited) with a name attribute. When a user is created, a name and email address must be present and must be unique (not used before). Note that Devise (by default) will check that the email address and password are not blank.

You’ll also want to prevent malicious hackers from creating fake web forms that would allow changing of passwords through the mass-assignment operations of update_attributes(attrs) and new(attrs). Devise already added this to the models/user.rb file:

attr_accessible :email, :password, :password_confirmation, :remember_me

but you’ll need to add the “name” attribute:

attr_accessible :name, :email, :password, :password_confirmation, :remember_me

Create Customized Views for User Registration (ERB)

Devise provides a controller and views for registering users. It is called the “registerable” module. The controller and views are hidden in the Devise gem so we don’t need to create anything. However, because we want our users to provide a name when registering, we will create custom views for creating and editing a user. Our custom views will override the Devise gem defaults.

First, to copy all the default Devise views to your application, run

rails generate devise:views

This will generate a set of views in the directory app/views/devise/.

Next, modify the views to create and edit users.

Add the following code to each file:

app/views/devise/registrations/edit.html.erb

  <p><%= f.label :name %><br />
  <%= f.text_field :name %></p>

app/views/devise/registrations/new.html.erb

  <p><%= f.label :name %><br />
  <%= f.text_field :name %></p>

We do not need to add a controller with methods to create a new user or edit or delete a user. We use the existing “registerable” module from Devise which provides a controller with methods to create, edit or delete a user.

Note that Devise’s default behaviour allows any logged-in user to edit or delete his or her own record (but no one else’s). When you access the edit page you are editing just your info, and not info of other users.

Create Customized Views for User Registration (Haml)

If you are using Haml, Devise does not generate views for Haml (it did before February 15, 2011; see Devise issue 878).

You can create the files:

app/views/devise/registrations/edit.html.haml

%h2
  Edit #{resource_name.to_s.humanize}
= form_for(resource, :as => resource_name, :url => registration_path(resource_name), :html => { :method => :put }) do |f|
  = devise_error_messages!
  %p
    = f.label :name
    %br/
    = f.text_field :name
  %p
    = f.label :email
    %br/
    = f.email_field :email
  %p
    = f.label :password
    %i (leave blank if you don't want to change it)
    %br/
    = f.password_field :password
  %p
    = f.label :password_confirmation
    %br/
    = f.password_field :password_confirmation
  %p
    = f.label :current_password
    %i (we need your current password to confirm your changes)
    %br/
    = f.password_field :current_password
  %p= f.submit "Update"
%h3 Cancel my account
%p
  Unhappy? #{link_to "Cancel my account", registration_path(resource_name), :confirm => "Are you sure?", :method => :delete}.
= link_to "Back", :back

app/views/devise/registrations/new.html.haml

%h2 Sign up
= form_for(resource, :as => resource_name, :url => registration_path(resource_name)) do |f|
  = devise_error_messages!
  %p
    = f.label :name
    %br/
    = f.text_field :name
  %p
    = f.label :email
    %br/
    = f.email_field :email
  %p
    = f.label :password
    %br/
    = f.password_field :password
  %p
    = f.label :password_confirmation
    %br/
    = f.password_field :password_confirmation
  %p= f.submit "Sign up"
= render :partial => "devise/shared/links"

Create a Home Page

If you are creating an application template, this step uses the home_page recipe from the rails_apps_composer repository.

Remove the Default Home Page

Delete the default home page from your application:

$ rm public/index.html

Create a Home Controller and View

Create the first page of the application. Use the Rails generate command to create a “home” controller and a “views/home/index” page.

$ rails generate controller home index

If you’re using the default template engine, you’ll find an erb file with placeholder content:

app/views/home/index.html.erb

If you’re using Haml, you’ll find a haml file with placeholder content:

app/views/home/index.html.haml

We’ll assume you’re using the default template engine for the remainder of this tutorial.

Now, you have to set a route to your home page. Edit the file config/routes.rb and replace:

get "home/index"

with

root :to => "home#index"

We’ll add some content to the home page in the next step.

Test the App

You can check that your app runs properly by entering the command

$ rails server

To see your application in action, open a browser window and navigate to http://localhost:3000/. You should see your new home page.

Stop the server with Control-C.

Create a Default User

Display Users on the Home Page

If you are creating an application template, this step uses the home_page_users recipe from the rails_apps_composer repository.

Modify the file controllers/home_controller.rb and add:

def index
  @users = User.all
end

Modify the file app/views/home/index.html.erb and add:

<h3>Home</h3>
<% @users.each do |user| %>
  <p>User: <%= user.name %> </p>
<% end %>

Set Up a Database Seed File

If you are creating an application template, this step uses the seed_database recipe from the rails_apps_composer repository.

You’ll want to set up a default user so you can test the app. Modify the file db/seeds.rb by adding:

puts 'SETTING UP DEFAULT USER LOGIN'
user = User.create! :name => 'First User', :email => '[email protected]', :password => 'please', :password_confirmation => 'please'
puts 'New user created: ' << user.name

You can change the values for name, email, and password as you wish.

Seed the Database

Add the default user to the database by running the command:

$ rake db:seed

If you need to, you can run $ rake db:reset to drop and then recreate the database using your seeds.rb file.

If the task fails with “Validation failed: Name can’t be blank” you should check that the file models/user.rb allows the “name” attribute to be mass updated:

attr_accessible :name, :email, :password, :password_confirmation, :remember_me

Test the App

At this point, you may want to know if the default user has been saved to the database.

You can check that your app runs properly by entering the command

$ rails server

To see your application in action, open a browser window and navigate to http://localhost:3000/. You should see your new home page.

Stop the server with Control-C.

Set Up a Demonstration of Devise

You’ll want to see how Devise manages authentication.

Set Up the Users Controller, Views, and Routes

If you are creating an application template, this step uses the users_page recipe from the rails_apps_composer repository.

Use the Rails generate command to create a “users” controller and a “views/user/show” page.

$ rails generate controller users show

Note that “users” is plural when you create the controller.

Modify the file controllers/users_controller.rb and add:

before_filter :authenticate_user!

def show
  @user = User.find(params[:id])
end

The file config/routes.rb has already been modified to include:

get "users/show"

Remove that and change the routes to:

root :to => "home#index"
devise_for :users
resources :users, :only => :show

Important note: The devise_for :users route must be placed above resources :users, :only => :show.

Modify the file app/views/users/show.html.erb and add:

<p>User: <%= @user.name %></p>

Add Links to Users on the Home Page

You’ve already modifed the file controllers/home_controller.rb to include this:

def index
  @users = User.all
end

Now modify the file app/views/home/index.html.erb to look like this:

<h3>Home</h3>
<% @users.each do |user| %>
  <p>User: <%=link_to user.name, user %></p>
<% end %>

Create an Application Layout

Set Up CSS Stylesheets

If you are creating an application template, this step uses the css_setup recipe from the rails_apps_composer repository.

We’ll create a very simple stylesheet with styling for a horizontal menu and flash messages:

For Rails 3.0, you’ll need to create a public/stylesheets/application.css file.

For Rails 3.1, you’ll find a app/assets/stylesheets/application.css file.

You can add this to the application.css file:

ul.hmenu {
  list-style: none;	
  margin: 0 0 2em;
  padding: 0;
}
ul.hmenu li {
  display: inline;  
}
#flash_notice, #flash_alert {
  padding: 5px 8px;
  margin: 10px 0;
}
#flash_notice {
  background-color: #CFC;
  border: solid 1px #6C6;
}
#flash_alert {
  background-color: #FCC;
  border: solid 1px #C66;
}

The Default Application Layout

If you are creating an application template, this step uses the application_layout recipe from the rails_apps_composer repository.

Rails will use the layout defined in the file app/views/layouts/application.html.erb or app/views/layouts/application.html.haml as a default for rendering any page. Set up your application layout by modifying the default.

The Rails 3.0 default application layout app/views/layouts/application.html.erb looks like this:

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
  <title><%= app_name %></title>
  <%= stylesheet_link_tag :all %>
  <%= javascript_include_tag :defaults %>
  <%= csrf_meta_tag %>
</head>
<body>

<%= yield %>

</body>
</html>

It is slightly different in Rails 3.1:

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
  <title>Testapp</title>
  <%= stylesheet_link_tag    "application" %>
  <%= javascript_include_tag "application" %>
  <%= csrf_meta_tags %>
</head>
<body>

<%= yield %>

</body>
</html>

If you are using Haml, remove app/views/layouts/application.html.erb and replace it with app/views/layouts/application.html.haml like this:

$ rm public/index.html

!!!
%html
  %head
    %title #{app_name}
    = stylesheet_link_tag :all
    = javascript_include_tag :defaults
    = csrf_meta_tag
  %body
    = yield

You’ll modify the default application layout in the next steps.

Include Flash Messages

Include flash messages in app/views/layouts/application.html.erb like this:

<body>
  <%- flash.each do |name, msg| -%>
    <%= content_tag :div, msg, :id => "flash_#{name}" if msg.is_a?(String) %>
  <%- end -%>
<%= yield %>

For Haml, modify app/views/layouts/application.html.haml like this:

%body
  - flash.each do |name, msg|
    = content_tag :div, msg, :id => "flash_#{name}" if msg.is_a?(String)
  = yield

Add Devise Navigation Links

If you are creating an application template, this step uses the devise_navigation recipe from the rails_apps_composer repository.

You will want to add navigation links to the application layout for the Devise sign-up and log-in actions. You’ll find a simple example on the Devise wiki.

Create a menu directory under app/views/devise. Then create the file app/views/devise/menu/_login_items.html.erb and add:

<% if user_signed_in? %>
  <li>
  <%= link_to('Logout', destroy_user_session_path) %>        
  </li>
<% else %>
  <li>
  <%= link_to('Login', new_user_session_path)  %>  
  </li>
<% end %>

Create the file app/views/devise/menu/_registration_items.html.erb and add:

<% if user_signed_in? %>
  <li>
  <%= link_to('Edit account', edit_user_registration_path) %>
  </li>
<% else %>
  <li>
  <%= link_to('Sign up', new_user_registration_path)  %>
  </li>
<% end %>

Then use these partials in your app/views/layouts/application.html.erb file, like this:

<body>
  <ul class="hmenu">
    <%= render 'devise/menu/registration_items' %>
    <%= render 'devise/menu/login_items' %>
  </ul>
  <%- flash.each do |name, msg| -%>
    <%= content_tag :div, msg, :id => "flash_#{name}" if msg.is_a?(String) %>
  <%- end -%>
<%= yield %>

For Haml, modify app/views/layouts/application.html.haml like this:

%body
  %ul.hmenu
    = render 'devise/menu/registration_items'
    = render 'devise/menu/login_items'
  - flash.each do |name, msg|
    = content_tag :div, msg, :id => "flash_#{name}" if msg.is_a?(String)
  = yield

Cleanup

Remove Unneeded Files

If you are creating an application template, this step uses the cleanup recipe from the rails_apps_composer repository.

Remove various unneeded files from your application:

$ rm public/favicon.ico

In Rails 3.0:

$ rm public/images/rails.png

In Rails 3.1:

$ rm app/assets/images/rails.png

In a previous step, you deleted the default home page from your application. But if you didn’t already:

$ rm public/index.html

Ban Spiders

If you are creating an application template, this step uses the ban_spiders recipe from the rails_apps_composer repository.

You may want to modify the file public/robots.txt to prevent indexing by search engines if you plan to have a development version on a publicly accessible server:

# To ban all spiders from the entire site uncomment the next two lines:
User-Agent: *
Disallow: /

Test the App

You can check that your app runs properly by entering the command

$ rails server

To see your application in action, open a browser window and navigate to http://localhost:3000/. You should see the default user listed on the home page. When you click on the user’s name, you should be required to log in before seeing the user’s detail page.

Stop the server with Control-C.

Deploy to Heroku

Set Up Heroku

For your convenience, here are instructions for deploying your app to Heroku. Heroku provides low cost, easily configured Rails application hosting.

To deploy this app to Heroku, you must have a Heroku account. If you need to obtain one, visit http://heroku.com/ to set up an account.

Make sure the Heroku gem is in your Gemfile (check rubygems.org for the latest heroku gem):

gem "heroku", ">= 1.19.1"

If it’s not, add it and run

$ bundle install

to set up your gems again.

Add your public key immediately after installing the heroku gem so that you can use git to push or clone Heroku app repositories. See http://devcenter.heroku.com/articles/heroku-command for details.

Create Your Application on Heroku

Use the Heroku create command to create and name your new app.

$ heroku create _myapp_

As of 9 February 2011, bamboo-ree-1.8.7 is the default stack for new Heroku apps.

If you want to use Ruby 1.9.2, you can create your app with:

heroku create _myapp_ --stack bamboo-mri-1.9.2

Heroku Add-on for MongoHQ

You can use a Heroku add-on to deploy your app using the MongoHQ service. See details about the service and details about installation.

To enable the add-on, you can use the Heroku web interface or you can enter the following commands:

$ heroku addons:add mongohq:free

Check Heroku Configuration

You can check that everything has been added correctly by running:

$ heroku info --app myapp

If you see Stack: bamboo-ree-1.8.7 and you want to use Ruby 1.9.2, you can migrate:

heroku stack:migrate bamboo-mri-1.9.2

Push Your Application to Heroku

Push your application to Heroku:

$ git push heroku master

Initialize your application database:

$ heroku rake db:seed

Visit Your Site

Open your Heroku site in your default web browser:

$ heroku open

Troubleshooting

If you get errors, you can troubleshoot by reviewing the log files:

$ heroku logs

Conclusion

This concludes the tutorial for creating a Ruby on Rails web application that requires Rails 3 and uses Devise for user management and authentication with RSpec and Cucumber.

Credits

Daniel Kehoe (http://danielkehoe.com/) implemented the application and wrote the tutorial.

Was this useful to you? Follow me on Twitter:
http://twitter.com/rails_apps
and tweet some praise. I’d love to know you were helped out by the tutorial.

Any issues? Please create an Issue on GitHub.

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