Spine-Rails

Easily setup and use Spine with Rails 3.1.

Rails 3.1 setup

This gem requires the use of Rails 3.1, CoffeeScript and the new Rails asset pipeline provided by Sprockets.

This gem does two things:

• Adds Spine to the asset pipeline, so you can easily require it in your applications: //= require spine

• Adds some Spine generators, so you can easily create Spine Models, Views and Controllers.

Installation

In your Gemfile, add the following lines:

gem "json2-rails"
gem "spine-rails"

Make sure that your Gemfile also includes

gem "jquery-rails"

Or if your using Zepto

gem "zepto-rails"

Then run the following commands:

bundle install

rails generate spine:new

Layout and namespacing

Running rails g spine:new will create the following directory structure:

app/assets/javascripts/app/models/
app/assets/javascripts/app/views/
app/assets/javascripts/app/controllers/
app/assets/javascripts/app/index.js.coffee

By default your application will be namespaced by the app directory. You can specify a different namespace with the --app option:

rails g spine:new --app foo_bar

NOTE: If you use the --app option here, then you will also have to specify it with other generators.

Use the top-level level index.js.coffee file to setup namespacing and initial controller instantiation.

Generators

spine-rails provides three simple generators to help you get started:

Model

rails g spine:model User email username full_name

This generator creates a very minimal model inside app/assets/javascript/app/models. You have to provide a list of attributes for the model.

Controller

rails g spine:controller Users

This generator creates a minimal Users controller in app/assets/javascripts/app/controllers to get you started.

View

rails g spine:view users/index

This generator creates a blank Spine view app/assets/javascripts/app/views/users/index.jst.ejs.

The generator will create views in hamljs, eco or ejs format, depending on the gems availale:

1. eco - will use ECO templates
2. ruby-haml-js - will use HAMLJS templates
3. otherwise, EJS templates will be used

Example Usage

Created a new Rails application called blog.

rails new blog

Edit your Gemfile and add

gem "spine-rails"

Install the gem and generate resource.

bundle install

rails g scaffold Post title:string content:string
rake db:migrate

rails g spine:new
rails g spine:model Post title content
rails g spine:controller Posts

You now have the default Spine data structures available to work with.

Next navigate to http://localhost:3000/posts, and open up the JavaScript console in the browser.

Now you can use Spine:

// Sends an AJAX POST to the server
var post = App.Post.create({
  title: 'Hello World!',
  content: 'Spine & Rails, sitting in a tree!'
});

// => ID returned from Rails
post.id;

// Sends AJAX PUT to the server
post.updateAttributes({title: 'Goodbye'});

Reload the page, then:

App.Post.fetch(); // Fetch all posts

App.Post.first().content;

For more information on how to integrate Spine with Rails, please see the Rails guide.

Also if you want to have some useful helpers to bridge the gap between Spine and Rails, then spine-extensions is for you.

Attributions

This plugin was made by Alex MacCaw with major contributions from Dmytrii Nagirniak [Zohar Arad] (https:://github.com/zohararad) and [Ben Haines] (http://github.com/benhainez). It's under the same license as Spine (MIT).