Advanced Rails - Building Industrial-Strength Web Apps in Record Time

About Plugins | 81

Therapt searchcommand looks for plugins matching a specified keyword. To
search for plugins that add calendar features to Rails, change to the root directory of
a Rails application and execute:

$ rapt search calendar

Calendar Helper

Info: http://agilewebdevelopment.com/plugins/show/98

Install: http://topfunky.net/svn/plugins/calendar_helper

Calendariffic 0.1.0

Info: http://agilewebdevelopment.com/plugins/show/743

Install: http://opensvn.csie.org/calendariffic/calendariffic/

Google Calendar Generator

Info: http://agilewebdevelopment.com/plugins/show/277

Install: svn://rubyforge.org//var/svn/googlecalendar/plugins/googlecalendar

dhtml_calendar

Info: http://agilewebdevelopment.com/plugins/show/333

Install: svn://rubyforge.org//var/svn/dhtmlcalendar/dhtml_calendar

Bundled Resource

Info: http://agilewebdevelopment.com/plugins/show/166

Install: svn://syncid.textdriven.com/svn/opensource/bundled_resource/trunk

DatebocksEngine

Info: http://agilewebdevelopment.com/plugins/show/356

Install: http://svn.toolbocks.com/plugins/datebocks_engine/

datepicker_engine

Info: http://agilewebdevelopment.com/plugins/show/409

Install: http://svn.mamatux.dk/rails-engines/datepicker_engine

One of these could then be installed with, for example,rapt install datepicker_engine.

Piston

In Rails, plugins are perhaps the most common use of code supplied by an external
vendor (other than the Rails framework itself). This requires some special care where
version control is concerned. Managing Rails plugins as Subversion externals has sev-
eral disadvantages:

• The remote server must be contacted on each update to determine whether any-
  thing has changed. This can incur quite a performance penalty if the project has
  many externals. In addition, it adds an unneeded dependency; problems can
  ensue if the remote server is down.


• The project is generally at the mercy of code changes that happen at the remote
  branch; there is no easy way to cherry-pick or block changes that happen
  remotely. The only flexibility Subversion affords is the ability to lock to a certain
  remote revision.


• Similarly, there is no way to maintain local modifications to a remote branch.
  Any needed modifications can only be kept in the working copy, where they are
  unversioned.


• No history is kept of how external versions relate to the local repository. If you
  want to update your working copy to last month’s version, nobody knows what
  version the external code was at.