RailsCasts

#417 Foundation Jun 16, 2013

ZURB's Foundation is a front-end for quickly building applications and prototypes. It is similar to Twitter Bootstrap but uses Sass instead of LESS. Here you will learn the basics of the grid system, navigation, tooltips and more.

#415 Upgrading to Rails 4 May 06, 2013

With the release of Rails 4.0.0.rc1 it's time to try it out and report any bugs. Here I walk you through the steps to upgrade a Rails 3.2 application to Rails 4.

#412 Fast Rails Commands Apr 04, 2013

Rails commands, such as generators, migrations, and tests, have a tendency to be slow because they need to load the Rails app each time. Here I show three tools to make this faster: Zeus, Spring, and Commands.

#409 Active Model Serializers Mar 09, 2013

The ActiveModel::Serializers gem can help you build JSON APIs through serializer objects. This provides a dedicated place to fully customize the JSON output.

#406 Public Activity Feb 13, 2013

Learn how to easily add a user activity feed using the public_activity gem. Here I show both the default setup using model callbacks and a manual way to trigger activities.

#402 Better Errors & RailsPanel Jan 25, 2013

Here we take a look at two tools to aid us in development: Better Errors which makes it easier than ever to debug exceptions, and RailsPanel, a Chrome extension to see Rails requests.

#400 What's New in Rails 4 Jan 04, 2013

Rails 4.0 is still unfinished, but it is shaping up to become a great release. Here I show how to setup a new Rails 4.0 (edge) application and walk through many of its new features.

#396 Importing CSV and Excel Dec 08, 2012

Allow users to import records into the database by uploading a CSV or Excel document. Here I show how to use Roo to parse these files and present a solution for validations.

#393 Guest User Record Nov 21, 2012

Instead of presenting a sign up form to the user, consider creating a temporary guest record so the user can try out the application without filling in their information up front. They can then become a permanent member afterwards.

#390 Turbolinks Nov 05, 2012

Turbolinks can make your Rails app feel faster by using JavaScript to replace the page content when clicking a link. It will be default in new Rails 4.0 applications, but here I show how to use it in Rails 3 and mention some of the gotchas.

#387 Cache Digests Oct 20, 2012

The cache_digests gem (also included in Rails 4) will automatically add a digest to the fragment cache key based on the template. If a template changes the cache will auto-expire. But watch out for the gotchas!

#384 Exploring RubyGems Oct 07, 2012

RubyGems can make it easy to add a feature to a Rails application, but it can also cause headaches down the road. Here I give some tips on researching gems to decide which one to choose, or when to do it from scratch.

#382 Tagging Sep 22, 2012

There are several gems to help implement tags in a Rails app. Here I show you how to integrate acts-as-taggable-on and then show how to do it from scratch.

#378 FnordMetric Sep 04, 2012

FnordMetric allows you to chart events in real time. This is great for keeping track of user activity in your Rails app as demonstrated in this episode.

#376 JRuby Basics Aug 30, 2012

JRuby is a polished and stable Ruby implementation. Here I show the basics of setting it up and executing Java from within Ruby. I also see how it compares with MRI at running threads.

#374 Image Manipulation Aug 16, 2012

Learn how to do extensive image manipulation with the ImageMagick commands. Also learn how RMagick can be used in combination with CarrierWave to process uploaded images.

#372 Bullet Aug 09, 2012

Bullet will notify you of database queries that can potentially be improved through eager loading or counter cache column. A variety of notification alerts are supported.

#370 Ransack Aug 03, 2012

Ransack allows you to easily build complex search forms. It also helps in adding sortable links and building a dynamic advanced search page.

#368 MiniProfiler Jul 24, 2012

MiniProfiler allows you to see the speed of a request conveniently on the page. It also shows the SQL queries performed and allows you to profile a specific block of code.

#366 Sidekiq Jul 18, 2012

Sidekiq allows you to move jobs into the background for asynchronous processing. It uses threads instead of forks so it is much more efficient with memory compared to Resque.

#364 Active Record Reputation System Jul 09, 2012

If you need to calculate an average user's rating or sum up a number of votes, consider using the activerecord-reputation-system gem. Here I will cover the basics and also briefly present a from-scratch solution.

#362 Exporting CSV and Excel Jul 02, 2012

As you will see it is easy to add a CSV export option to Rails. Here I also show how to export for Excel in a variety of formats.

#360 Facebook Authentication Jun 25, 2012

This will show how to create a new facebook application and configure it. Then add some authentication with the omniauth-facebook gem and top it off with a client-side authentication using the JavaScript SDK.

#358 Brakeman Jun 15, 2012

The Brakeman gem will scan the Ruby code of a Rails application and alert you to common security vulnerabilities.

#356 Dangers of Session Hijacking Jun 08, 2012

If a user's authentication cookie is sent over an insecure connection it is vulnerable to session hijacking, or more specifically, sidejacking. Learn how this is done, and how you can prevent it.

#354 Squeel May 30, 2012

Squeel provides a comprehensive DSL for writing SQL queries in Ruby. It is built upon Arel giving you access to many of its powerful features.

#352 Securing an API May 23, 2012

There are many approaches to locking down an API. Here I start off with HTTP Basic authentication then move on to generating a unique token which can be passed through a URL parameter or HTTP header.

#350 REST API Versioning May 16, 2012

APIs should be consistent, but it is difficult to do this when returning a JSON response along side the HTML interface. Here I show how to add a versioned, RESTful API. The version can be determined from either the URL or HTTP headers.

#348 The Rails API Gem May 09, 2012

It is often asked: Is Rails a good fit if I only need to serve an API? In this episode I show how to use the Rails API gem to create a slimmer Rails application designed to respond with JSON.

#347 Rubber and Amazon EC2 May 03, 2012

Deploying to Amazon EC2 allows you to scale an application quickly. Learn how to use Rubber to deploy to the cloud with just a few commands and monitor the cluster with various web tools.

#346 Wizard Forms with Wicked May 03, 2012

Creating a wizard form can be tricky in Rails. Learn how Wicked can help by turning a controller into a series of multiple steps.

#344 Queue Classic Apr 24, 2012

PostgreSQL can act as a worker queue which can replace the need for a separate process to manage the background jobs. Here you will learn how to do this with the queue_classic gem.

#342 Migrating to PostgreSQL Apr 17, 2012

Postgres is a feature-packed relational database that every Rails developer should consider using. Here you will learn how to install it, add it to a new application, and transition from an existing SQLite app using the "taps" gem.

#340 DataTables Apr 11, 2012

DataTables makes it easy to convert a plain HTML table into one with pagination, sorting, and searching - all done with JavaScript and jQuery. Here I show how to set this up and use a Rails application as the data source.

#338 Globalize3 Apr 04, 2012

Rails has great internationalization (I18n) support making it easy to translate static text into other languages, but how do we translate database content? Learn how using Globalize 3 in this episode.

#336 Copycopter Mar 27, 2012

Copycopter provides a nice interface that clients can use to edit the text in a Rails application. Learn how to deploy a Copycopter server using Heroku and integrate it in a Rails application through I18n.

#334 Compass & CSS Sprites Mar 21, 2012

Compass improves the Sass experience by providing useful mixins, functions, and more. You will also learn how to make CSS sprites with it in this episode.

#332 Refinery CMS Basics Mar 14, 2012

If you need to quickly create an informational site that can be easily edited, consider using a content management system. Here I show how to build a site using Refinery CMS.

#330 Better Sass with Bourbon Mar 07, 2012

If you are tired of the browser vendor prefixes in CSS, check out Bourbon. It provides Sass mixins and functions to make CSS more convenient.

#328 Twitter Bootstrap Basics Feb 28, 2012

Twitter Bootstrap can help make beautiful web apps quickly by providing you with useful CSS and JavaScript. Here you will learn how to include it into Rails with the twitter-bootstrap-rails gem.

#326 ActiveAttr Feb 21, 2012

ActiveAttr provides what Active Model left out. If you need to create a table-less model with features similar to Active Record, watch this episode.

#324 Passing Data to JavaScript Feb 13, 2012

There are a variety of ways to pass variables from a Rails application to JavaScript. Here I show three techniques: a script tag, a data attribute, and the Gon gem.

#322 RABL Feb 08, 2012

RABL - Ruby API Builder Language - provides a DSL for generating JSON or XML responses in a Ruby application. Learn how to share and configure complex JSON data in this episode.

#320 Jbuilder Jan 30, 2012

Jbuilder provides a DSL for generating JSON. It includes a template engine which allows you to create complex responses with helpers and conditions.

#318 Upgrading to Rails 3.2 Jan 23, 2012

Rails 3.2 sports many new features including automatic explain queries, tagged logging, key-value store in Active Record, improved migration generator and more. Learn all about these new features in this episode.

#316 Private Pub Jan 16, 2012

Private Pub makes it easier than ever to publish and subscribe to real-time events in a Rails app. You can use publish_to with a block of JavaScript or supply a hash for use with JSON.

#314 Pretty URLs with FriendlyId Jan 09, 2012

If you are tired of model ids in the URL, overriding to_param can only get you so far. The friendly_id plugin can help by making it easy to generate a URL slug and maintain a history.

#312 Sending HTML Email Jan 02, 2012

HTML email can be difficult to code because any CSS should be made inline. Here I present a few tools for doing this including the premailer-rails3 and roadie gems.

#310 Getting Started with Rails Dec 26, 2011

Learning Ruby on Rails can be overwhelming, especially if you are new to programming. Here I will take you on a tour through various resources to help get started with Rails.

#308 Oh My ZSH Dec 19, 2011

As Rails developers, we frequently use the command line. Here I will show how to switch to Z Shell using Oh My ZSH including how to make your own theme and plugins.

#306 ElasticSearch Part 1 Dec 12, 2011

Add full text searching using ElasticSearch and Tire. Here I will show the steps involved in adding this search to an existing application. This is the first part in a two part series.

#304 OmniAuth Identity Dec 05, 2011

With the release of OmniAuth 1.0 there is a new Identity strategy which allows users to register/login with a password if they don't want to use an external provider.

#302 In-Place Editing Nov 28, 2011

Edit an attribute in-place without leaving a page using the Best In Place gem. Learn how to add validations and support for various field types.

#300 Contributing to Open Source Nov 21, 2011

GitHub makes it easier than ever to contribute to open source with pull requests. Here I show how to submit a pull request to the VCR project.

#298 Getting Started with Spree Nov 14, 2011

Spree allows you to quickly turn a Rails project into a full eCommerce application. Here I show how to set it up and configure the look and feel of the store.

#296 Mercury Editor Nov 07, 2011

Mercury allows you to edit a section of HTML directly in the web browser through a WYSIWYG editor. Here I show how to integrate Mercury into a Rails app and save the changes back to the database.

#294 Playing with PJAX Oct 31, 2011

PJAX allows you to quickly update a section of a page using AJAX with automatic pushState support. Here I show how to use both pjax_rails and rack-pjax gems.

#292 Virtual Machines with Vagrant Oct 24, 2011

Vagrant allows you to run your Rails application and all of its dependencies in a portable, sharable environment. Use for development, set it up as a staging server, or experiment with a production setup.

#290 SOAP with Savon Oct 17, 2011

Communicating with a SOAP API can be a daunting task. Savon makes this easier by presenting the SOAP API through a Ruby interface.

#288 Billing with Stripe Oct 10, 2011

Stripe is a full-stack payment solution with very reasonable pricing and is easy to setup. See how to add it to a Rails application here. Currently only available in the US.

#286 Draper Oct 03, 2011

Clean up complex view logic using Draper. This gem provides decorators (much like presenters) which bundles view logic in an object oriented fashion. In this episode I do a step-by-step refactoring of a complex template into a decorator.

#285 Spork Sep 26, 2011

Spork improves the loading time of your test suite by starting up your Rails application once in the background. Use it with Guard for the ultimate combo in fast feedback while doing TDD.

#284 Active Admin Sep 19, 2011

Active Admin allows you to quickly build an admin interface with just a few commands. Not only does it look great, but it is very customizable as shown in this episode.

#283 Authentication with Sorcery Sep 12, 2011

Sorcery is a full-featured, modular solution to authentication which leaves the controller and view layers up to you.

#282 Upgrading to Rails 3.1 Sep 05, 2011

It is incredibly easy to upgrade to Rails 3.1, but if you want to take advantage of the asset pipeline you will need to put in some extra effort. Have no fear because I walk you through each of the necessary steps in this episode.

#281 Foreman Aug 29, 2011

Foreman can help manage multiple processes that your Rails app depends upon when running in development. It also provides an export command to move them into production.

#280 Pry with Rails Aug 22, 2011

Pry is an alternative to IRB and sports many great features. Here I show how to integrate it into a Rails app, and how it can aid in debugging.

#279 Understanding the Asset Pipeline Aug 15, 2011

The asset pipeline is probably the biggest feature in Rails 3.1, but it can seem like magic at first. Here I dive into exactly how the asset pipeline works.

#278 Search with Sunspot Aug 08, 2011

Sunspot makes it easy to do full text searching through Solr. Here I show how to search on various attributes and add facets for filtering the search further.

#277 Mountable Engines Aug 01, 2011

Engines are receiving a major update in Rails 3.1. You can mount them at any path, embed assets, run generators and more. See how in this episode.

#276 Testing Time & Web Requests Jul 25, 2011

It can be difficult to test code that deals with the current time or an external web request. Here I show you how to do both using the Timecop and FakeWeb gems.

#275 How I Test Jul 18, 2011

Here I show how I would add tests to the password reset feature created in the previous episode. I use RSpec, Capybara, Factory Girl, and Guard to make request, model, and mailer specs.

#274 Remember Me & Reset Password Jul 11, 2011

It is easy to create authentication from scratch, but how do we extend it with more features? Here I add a "remember me" check box and a "forgotten password" link.

#273 Geocoder Jul 04, 2011

If you need to work with geographic data, Geocoder is an excellent gem for converting addresses and coordinates, finding nearby locations, determining distances, and more!

#272 Markdown with Redcarpet Jun 27, 2011

Redcarpet is an easy-to-use gem which interprets Markdown. Here I show how to customize it and add syntax highlighting through Pygments and Albino.

#271 Resque Jun 20, 2011

Resque creates background jobs using Redis. It supports multiple queue and comes with an administration interface for monitoring and managing the queues.

#270 Authentication in Rails 3.1 Jun 13, 2011

Here I show off three new features in Rails 3.1 that will help with authentication: easier HTTP Basic, SecurePassword in the database, and forcing SSL.

#269 Template Inheritance Jun 06, 2011

In Rails 3.1 the controller inheritance also applies to the view layer. Here I show how to add an application template which is shared by all views, and a lookup path for overriding templates based on the subdomain.

#268 Sass Basics May 30, 2011

Sass extends CSS with variables, nesting, mixins and more. Here I show how to convert plain CSS to SCSS in a Rails 3.1 app.

#267 CoffeeScript Basics May 23, 2011

CoffeeScript allows you to write JavaScript in a concise, elegant fashion. Here I convert JavaScript code to CoffeeScript in a Rails 3.1 app.

#266 HTTP Streaming May 16, 2011

HTTP Streaming allows the browser to start processing the HTML response while the Rails app is still processing the rest of the request.

#265 Rails 3.1 Overview May 09, 2011

This is the first episode in a series covering Rails 3.1. Here I show how to install the beta and show some of the new features.

#264 Guard May 02, 2011

Guard watches files and runs a command after a file is modified. This allows you to automatically run tests in the background, restart your development server, reload the browser, and more.

#263 Client Side Validations Apr 25, 2011

Showing validation errors inline as the user is filling out the form can lead to a better use experience. Learn how to do this using the Client Side Validations gem.

#262 Trees with Ancestry Apr 18, 2011

The Ancestry gem works like a tree but also allows us to fetch deeply nested messages in a single query. It provides a method to arrange them after fetching.

#261 Testing JavaScript with Jasmine Apr 11, 2011

Are you testing your JavaScript? Learn how to add specs using Jasmine. This episode also covers jQuery integration with jasmine-jquery.

#260 Messaging with Faye Apr 04, 2011

Faye is a subscription/publishing server which makes it easy to do push notifications within a Rails app.

#259 Decent Exposure Mar 28, 2011

The decent_exposure gem makes it convenient to share controller data with the view through methods instead of instance variables.

#258 Token Fields Mar 21, 2011

With the jQuery Tokeninput plugin it is easy to add an autocompleting list of entries for a many-to-many association.

#257 Request Specs and Capybara Mar 14, 2011

Request specs in RSpec are a great way to ensure the entire application stack is working properly. Here I also show how to use capybara with integrated JavaScript testing using Selenium.

#256 I18n Backends Mar 07, 2011

Internationalization is easy to add in Rails, but the YAML files can be difficult to manage. In this episode I show how to use Redis for managing the translations through a web interface.

#255 Undo with Paper Trail Feb 28, 2011

Undo and redo behavior is easy to add with a versioning gem such as Paper Trail. Learn how to add an undo link to any model's flash message.

#254 Pagination with Kaminari Feb 21, 2011

If you need pagination in Rails 3 try out Kaminari. It is a clean, flexible solution which uses scopes to flow nicely with Active Record queries. Did I mention it also works with Mongoid?

#253 CarrierWave File Uploads Feb 14, 2011

CarrierWave makes it easy and clean to add file uploads to your application. It supports a variety of ORMs, frameworks and image processors.

#252 Metrics Metrics Metrics Feb 07, 2011

Metric Fu, Metrical, SimpleCov, Rails Best Practices, and more are covered in this episode on metrics.

#251 MetaWhere & MetaSearch Jan 31, 2011

MetaWhere provides a way to do complex find conditions without SQL in Active Record. MetaSearch makes it easy to create search forms with many find options.

#250 Authentication from Scratch Jan 24, 2011

Password authentication is not too complicated to make from scratch, it will also help to get a better understanding of how it works.

#249 Notifications in Rails 3 Jan 17, 2011

Rails 3 comes with instrument support through the ActiveSupport::Notifications class. Call "subscribe" to listen to notifications, and "instrument" to send them.

#248 Offline Apps Part 2 Jan 10, 2011

Learn how to make a site usable offline with HTML 5 localStorage. This last part of the series covers jquery-tmpl and jquery-offline.

#247 Offline Apps Part 1 Jan 03, 2011

Learn how to make a site usable offline through an HTML 5 cache manifest. This first part of the series covers rack-offline and problems you may run into.

#246 AJAX History State Dec 27, 2010

The new pushState function in JavaScript allows us to change the full URL with AJAX. This means the back button, reloading, and bookmark support can be easily added.

#245 New Gem with Bundler Dec 20, 2010

Creating new gems is easy with the `bundle gem` command. In this episode I will walk you through how this works.

#244 Gravatar Dec 13, 2010

Gravatar is a service for providing user avatars. See how easy it is to use in Rails in this episode.

#243 Beanstalkd and Stalker Dec 06, 2010

Beanstalk is a fast and easy way to queue background tasks. Stalker provides a nice wrapper interface for creating these jobs.

#242 Thor Nov 29, 2010

Thor is an alternative to Rake. It has better support for command line arguments and provides a way to add global scripts.

#241 Simple OmniAuth Nov 22, 2010

Authentication is incredibly simple to add with just OmniAuth if you don't need username/password or multiple authentications per user.

#240 Search, Sort, Paginate with AJAX Nov 15, 2010

Many administration pages have search, sorting, and pagination on the index page. See how to add all of this including AJAX.

#239 ActiveRecord::Relation Walkthrough Nov 07, 2010

The new Active Record query methods in Rails 3 might seem like magic at first. But in this episode I unravel how it works by browsing the Rails 3 source code.

#238 Mongoid Nov 01, 2010

Mongoid is a polished, high-level Ruby gem for accessing MongoDB. Here I cover installation, adding fields, validations, associations, and keys.

#237 Dynamic attr_accessible Oct 25, 2010

It is important to use attr_accessible for security with mass assignment, but what if you need it to be dynamic based on user permissions? See how in this episode.

#236 OmniAuth Part 2 Oct 13, 2010

In this episode we continue our look at integrating OmniAuth with devise. Here I show how to set up new users with validations.

#235 OmniAuth Part 1 Oct 11, 2010

OmniAuth is an easy way to add many different authentication services to your app. In this episode we start integrating it with Devise.

#234 SimpleForm Oct 04, 2010

Simple Form is a convenient way to generate forms with many options to customize the generated markup.

#233 Engage with Devise Sep 27, 2010

Janrain Engage (aka RPX) makes it easy to support many authentication solutions through their one service.

#232 Routing Walkthrough Part 2 Sep 19, 2010

In this episode we continue our look into the Rails 3 router by exploring the Mapper class.

#231 Routing Walkthrough Part 1 Sep 13, 2010

How does routing work internally in Rails 3? In this episode I'll walk you through the Rails code that makes routing possible.

#230 Inherited Resources Sep 06, 2010

Inherited Resource simplifies RESTful controllers by providing default actions which can be customized through inheritance.

#229 Polling for Changes Aug 30, 2010

If you have frequently changing data on the server side, it's helpful to automatically display this to the user as well. Here I show how to accomplish this with polling in jQuery.

#228 Sortable Table Columns Aug 23, 2010

Here I walk you through adding the ability to sort table columns in ascending or descending order by clicking the header.

#227 Upgrading to Rails 3 Part 3 Aug 16, 2010

Here we finish up this upgrade series by removing all deprecation warnings and fixing some problems in the view.

#226 Upgrading to Rails 3 Part 2 Aug 09, 2010

Here we continue upgrading an application to Rails 3 by getting our specs up and running and going through the rails_upgrade plugin.

#225 Upgrading to Rails 3 Part 1 Aug 02, 2010

In the first part of this series on upgrading a Rails 2 application to Rails 3, we'll start off by setting up Rails 3.0 Release Candidate in a clean environment. The rails_upgrade plugin will then help us determine what needs upgrading.

#224 Controllers in Rails 3 Jul 26, 2010

Embedded flash notices, permanent cookies, and the details of respond_with are in this episode.

#223 Charts Jul 19, 2010

There are a number of libraries to help create graphs. Here I show how to integrate Highcharts into a Rails app.

#222 Rack in Rails 3 Jul 12, 2010

The router in Rails 3 is fully compatible with Rack. Learn how to embed Sinatra into an app, handle redirects, and improve on Rails Metal.

#221 Subdomains in Rails 3 Jul 05, 2010

It is now possible to add subdomains to Rails 3 without the use of additional plugins. Learn how in this episode.

#220 PDFKit Jun 28, 2010

Generating PDFs in plain Ruby can be a lot of work. Instead, consider generating PDFs from HTML using PDFKit.

#219 Active Model Jun 21, 2010

In Rails 3 the non-database functionality of Active Record is extracted out into Active Model. This allows you to cleanly add validations and other features to tableless models.

#218 Making Generators in Rails 3 Jun 14, 2010

Generators in Rails 3 have been rewritten to use Thor which means the code used to create a generator is quite different. Here you will learn the new way to make generators in Rails 3.

#217 Multistep Forms Jun 07, 2010

See how to create a multi-step (wizard) form from scratch in this episode.

#216 Generators in Rails 3 May 31, 2010

Generators in Rails 3 have been completely rewritten to be more modular. This allows you to customize any generator to fit your specific preferences.

#215 Advanced Queries in Rails 3 May 24, 2010

Learn some advanced techniques regarding named scopes and get an introduction to Arel in this episode.

#214 A/B Testing with A/Bingo May 17, 2010

A/B Testing (or Split Testing) is a way to experiment with variations in an application to see the most effective option.

#213 Calendars May 10, 2010

If dates play an important role in your application, consider adding a date picker or calendar view as shown in this episode.

#212 Refactoring & Dynamic Delegator May 03, 2010

Learn how to refactor a set of conditional Active Record queries using a Dynamic Delegator.

#211 Validations in Rails 3 Apr 26, 2010

Rails 3 offers several new additions to validations. Here learn how to make a custom error_messages partial, reflect on validations, and clean up complex validations in a model.

#210 Customizing Devise Apr 19, 2010

Here we dive deeper into Devise by customizing how the views, routing, validations, and authentication works.

#209 Introducing Devise Apr 12, 2010

Devise is a full-featured authentication solution which handles all of the controller logic and form views for you. Learn how to set it up in this episode.

#208 ERB Blocks in Rails 3 Apr 05, 2010

Blocks in ERB templates are handled differently in Rails 3.0 Beta 2. Learn all about it in this episode.

#207 Syntax Highlighting Mar 29, 2010

Here I talk about three popular choices for syntax highlighting in Rails: CodeRay, Ultraviolet and Pygments.

#206 Action Mailer in Rails 3 Mar 22, 2010

Action Mailer has been rewritten for Rails 3 providing a much cleaner API with its use of the Mail gem.

#205 Unobtrusive Javascript Mar 15, 2010

Keep JavaScript out of your HTML content with unobtrusive JavaScript. Here I show how Rails 3 works with this best practice.

#204 XSS Protection in Rails 3 Mar 08, 2010

It is easy to be vulnerable to cross site scripting attacks in earlier versions of Rails, but Rails 3 solves this by automatically escaping unsafe input.

#203 Routing in Rails 3 Mar 01, 2010

Rails 3 sports a new routing interface. In this episode I show how to translate the old interface into the new one and show off a few new features.

#202 Active Record Queries in Rails 3 Feb 22, 2010

Rails 3 introduces a new query interface for performing finds in Active Record. See how it works along with the changes in named scopes.

#201 Bundler Feb 15, 2010

Bundler is the way to manage gem dependencies in Rails 3.0. Learn how to install gems and lock them down in this episode.

#200 Rails 3 Beta and RVM Feb 08, 2010

Get started with Rails 3.0 Beta and install Ruby 1.9.1 using RVM: Ruby Version Manager. Stay tuned to the end for a challenge on giving back to open source.

#199 Mobile Devices Feb 01, 2010

Change the look and behavior of a Rails app on mobile devices. Also use jQTouch to build a native-looking interface.

#198 Edit Multiple Individually Jan 25, 2010

Use checkboxes to edit multiple records in one form, where each one has an individual set of form fields.

#197 Nested Model Form Part 2 Jan 18, 2010

Add and remove nested model fields dynamically through JavaScript using either Prototype or jQuery.

#196 Nested Model Form Part 1 Jan 11, 2010

Handling multiple models in a single form is much easier with the accepts_nested_attributes_for method. See how to use this method to handle nested model fields.

#195 My Favorite Web Apps in 2009 Jan 04, 2010

Here I show several of my favorite web applications which I found most helpful as a Ruby developer over the past year.

#194 MongoDB and MongoMapper Dec 28, 2009

MongoDB is a document based database engine. Learn how to access it through MongoMapper in this episode.

#193 Tableless Model Dec 21, 2009

If you want to create a model without a database backend, you simply need to define a couple methods in the model like I show in this episode.

#192 Authorization with CanCan Dec 14, 2009

CanCan is a simple authorization plugin that offers a lot of flexibility. See how to use it in this episode.

#191 Mechanize Dec 07, 2009

Mechanize extends the power of Nokogiri allowing you to interact with multiple pages on the site: click links, submit forms, etc.

#190 Screen Scraping with Nokogiri Nov 30, 2009

Screen scraping is easy with Nokogiri and SelectorGadget.

#189 Embedded Association Nov 23, 2009

Learn how to set up a one-to-many or many-to-many association which is entirely embedded into a single column through a string or bitmask.

#188 Declarative Authorization Nov 16, 2009

Declarative authorization provides an advanced and powerful solution for role based authorization.

#187 Testing Exceptions Nov 09, 2009

Sometimes bad code slips into production and triggers a 500 error. Learn how to be notified of this and resolve it through integration tests.

#186 Pickle with Cucumber Nov 02, 2009

Pickle adds many convenient Cucumber steps for generating models. Also learn about table diffs in this episode.

#185 Formtastic Part 2 Oct 26, 2009

Learn about some of the more advanced functionality of Formtastic including handling many-to-many associations, required fields, and styling.

#184 Formtastic Part 1 Oct 19, 2009

Formtastic is a concise way to generate form views. In this episode (part 1 of 2) I show how to generate both a simple form and a more complex one which is customized with options.

#183 Gemcutter & Jeweler Oct 12, 2009

Gemcutter is a new service for hosting RubyGems, and Jeweler provides an automated way to release versions of a gem.

#182 Cropping Images Oct 05, 2009

Present a slick user interface for cropping image attachments using Jcrop and Paperclip.

#181 Include vs Joins Sep 28, 2009

The :include and :joins options for the find method can be a little confusing because they are so similar. In this episode I show specifically when to use which option.

#180 Finding Unused CSS Sep 21, 2009

Over time a CSS file can become large and filled with unused selectors. In this episode I show how to use the Deadweight gem to determine which CSS selects you can remove.

#179 Seed Data Sep 14, 2009

Rails 2.3.4 includes a conventional way to add seed data to your application - no more including it in the migration files.

#178 7 Security Tips Sep 07, 2009

Security is important! Here I show seven different security flaws which are common to Rails applications ranging from mass assignment to CSRF protection.

#177 Model Versioning Aug 31, 2009

If you need to keep track of a model's history of changes and switch between versions, consider using the vestal_versions gem like I show in this episode.

#176 Searchlogic Aug 24, 2009

Searchlogic makes searching models easier than ever with its assortment of named scopes. In this episode I show you how to create simple and advanced searches.

#175 AJAX History and Bookmarks Aug 17, 2009

Browser page history and bookmarks do not usually work with AJAX requests, but in this episode I show you how to remedy this problem using a simple jQuery plugin.

#174 Pagination with AJAX Aug 10, 2009

Learn an easy, unobtrusive way to add AJAX functionality to an existing set of pagination links using jQuery.

#173 Screen Scraping with ScrAPI Aug 03, 2009

Screen scraping is not pretty, but sometimes it's your only option to extract content from an external site. In this episode I show you how to fetch product prices using ScrAPI.

#172 Touch and Cache Jul 27, 2009

Rails 2.3.3 brings us a new feature called "touch". See how to use this to auto-expire associated caches in this episode.

#171 Delayed Job Jul 20, 2009

Is there a long running task which should be handled in the background? One of the best ways is using the delayed_job plugin like I show in this episode.

#170 OpenID with Authlogic Jul 13, 2009

Learn how to apply OpenID to an existing Authlogic setup as I show in this episode. This builds upon the app from episode 160.

#169 Dynamic Page Caching Jul 06, 2009

Use JavaScript to allow dynamic content in a page cache. In this episode I show you how to insert the user-specific content into a page through JavaScript.

#168 Feed Parsing Jun 29, 2009

Learn two different techniques for parsing an RSS feed using Feedzirra in this episode!

#167 More on Virtual Attributes Jun 22, 2009

Use a virtual attribute to implement a simple tagging feature. In this episode I show you how to assign virtual attributes through a callback instead of a setter method.

#166 Metric Fu Jun 15, 2009

Metric Fu is a compilation of several tools to help find areas of code that could be improved. In this episode I show you how to setup this tool on the railscasts.com source code.

#165 Edit Multiple Jun 08, 2009

Use checkboxes to select multiple records and edit them all in one form as shown in this episode. With virtual attributes you can even edit values relatively!

#164 Cron in Ruby Jun 01, 2009

Cron is great for handling recurring tasks, but it is an external dependency with a crazy syntax. In this episode I show you how to use Whenever to create cron jobs with Ruby.

#163 Self-Referential Association May 25, 2009

Creating a social networking site often requires a self-referential association on the User model to define friends/followers. In this episode I show how to do exactly that.

#162 Tree Based Navigation May 18, 2009

The acts_as_tree plugin provides many methods for handling a tree based association. In this episode I show how to build a navigation system with tabs, subpages, and breadcrumbs.

#161 Three Profiling Tools May 11, 2009

Ever want to know what Rails is doing under the hood during a request? In this episode I show three different profiling tools: New Relic RPM, FiveRuns TuneUp, and Rack::Bug.

#160 Authlogic May 04, 2009

Authentication can get very complex. In this episode I show how Authlogic can handle this complexity while you stay in control of how it is presented to the user.

#159 More on Cucumber Apr 27, 2009

There is a lot more to Cucumber than I showed in an earlier episode. See how to refactor complex scenarios in this episode.

#158 Factories not Fixtures Apr 20, 2009

Fixtures are external dependencies which can make tests brittle and difficult to read. In this episode I show a better alternative using factories to generate the needed records.

#157 RSpec Matchers & Macros Apr 13, 2009

You can improve the readability and remove duplication in RSpec by adding matchers and macros. Learn how in this episode.

#156 Webrat Apr 06, 2009

If you prefer writing integration tests in ruby instead of Cucumber's plain english, consider interacting with Webrat directly as I show in this episode.

#155 Beginning with Cucumber Mar 30, 2009

Cucumber is a high-level testing framework. In this episode we will create a new Rails application from scratch using behavior driven development.

#154 Polymorphic Association Mar 23, 2009

Polymorphic associations can be perplexing. In this episode I show you how to set it up in Active Record and then move to the controller and view layer.

#153 PDFs with Prawn Mar 16, 2009

Prawn is an excellent Ruby library for generating PDF documents. Learn how to use it along with the Prawnto plugin in this episode.

#152 Rails 2.3 Extras Mar 09, 2009

This episode finishes up this series on Rails 2.3. Here you will learn about several smaller additions in 2.3.

#151 Rack Middleware Mar 02, 2009

Rack middleware is a way to filter a request and response coming into your application. In this episode I show how to modify the response body using middleware.

#150 Rails Metal Feb 23, 2009

Rails Metal is a way to bypass the standard Rails request process for a performance boost. In this episode you will learn how to shave off a few milliseconds using Metal.

#149 Rails Engines Feb 16, 2009

Rails 2.3 brings us much of the same functionality as the Rails Engines plugin. Learn how to embed one application into another in this episode.

#148 App Templates in Rails 2.3 Feb 09, 2009

In Rails 2.3 you can provide a template when generating a new Rails application. See how in this episode.

#147 Sortable Lists Feb 02, 2009

Creating drag & drop sortable lists is fairly easy using Prototype and the built in helper methods. See how in this episode.

#146 PayPal Express Checkout Jan 26, 2009

PayPal Express Checkout is easy to add to an existing ordering system. See how in this episode.

#145 Integrating Active Merchant Jan 19, 2009

In this episode I show how to add Active Merchant's functionality to a Rails application to make a fully-functional checkout process.

#144 Active Merchant Basics Jan 12, 2009

Active Merchant is a great library for handling credit card transactions. In this episode I will show you the basics of using it to communicate with PayPal's gateway.

#143 PayPal Security Jan 05, 2009

This episode shows how to encrypt the variables passed to PayPal and verify the authenticity of the payment notifications (IPN).

#142 PayPal Notifications Dec 29, 2008

PayPal's IPN (Instant Payment Notification) service allows your app to get confirmation when an order is processed. In this episode I use IPN to mark a cart as purchased.

#141 PayPal Basics Dec 22, 2008

This episode is the first in a series on handling the checkout process for orders. Here we show how to complete purchases through PayPal's Website Payments Standard service.

#140 Rails 2.2 Extras Dec 15, 2008

This episode finishes up the Rails 2.2 series by showing a few miscellaneous additions that I find useful.

#139 Nested Resources Dec 08, 2008

In this episode I show how to nest resources through routing and go into some new additions in Rails 2.2.

#138 I18n Dec 01, 2008

Internationalization is one of the biggest additions in Rails 2.2. See how the basics work in this episode.

#137 Memoization Nov 24, 2008

Rails 2.2 is out! In this episode I show how to upgrade Rails and then demonstrate one of the new additions: Memoization.

#136 jQuery Nov 17, 2008

How do you use jQuery with Rails? In this episode I redo episode #43 using jQuery instead of Prototype/RJS.

#135 Making a Gem Nov 10, 2008

Want to create a Ruby Gem instead of a Rails plugin? In this episode I will walk you through creating a gem to extend Rails.

#134 Paperclip Nov 03, 2008

Need to add image attachments to a model? See how with paperclip in this episode.

#133 Capistrano Tasks Oct 27, 2008

Do you know how to make Capistrano tasks? See how to change default deployment behavior with custom tasks in this episode.

#132 Helpers Outside Views Oct 20, 2008

Have you ever wanted to access helper methods outside of the view layer? In this episode I show you a couple ways to do just that.

#131 Going Back Oct 12, 2008

This episode demonstrates a couple ways to redirect the user back to a previous page. Applying this to your site can help minimize the user's need to press the back button.

#130 Monitoring with God Oct 05, 2008

Need to ensure your background processes stay up and running and don't use too many resources? Check out the god gem as shown in this episode.

#129 Custom Daemon Sep 29, 2008

Creating a custom daemon to handle background tasks is surprisingly simple. In this episode I will make a daemon to handle dynamically scheduled tasks.

#128 Starling and Workling Sep 22, 2008

Need to run a task frequently in the background? Starling and Workling is a killer combination for doing just that. See how in this episode.

#127 Rake in Background Sep 15, 2008

In need of a background process? You may be able to accomplish this with a simple Rake task. See how in this episode.

#126 Populating a Database Sep 08, 2008

Have you ever wanted to fill up a database with a lot of test data? See how to do that in this episode using the populator and faker gems.

#125 Dynamic Layouts Sep 01, 2008

Discover how to dynamically change the layout using content in the database. Check out this episode for details.

#124 Beta Invitations Aug 25, 2008

You know those invitation systems where a given user can invite a number of other people to join? That's what I show you how to make in this episode.

#123 Subdomains Aug 18, 2008

Learn how to unleash the full potential of subdomains with the subdomain-fu Rails plugin in this episode.

#122 Passenger in Development Aug 11, 2008

Tired of juggling multiple Rails apps around with script/server? See how to set up Passenger in development so each one has its own local domain name.

#121 Non Active Record Model Aug 04, 2008

This episode will show you how to make a model which isn't based on Active Record. You may want to do this if a resource isn't backed by the database.

#120 Thinking Sphinx Jul 28, 2008

If you need a full text search engine, Thinking Sphinx is a great solution. See why in this episode.

#119 Session Based Model Jul 21, 2008

If you have a lot of logic associated with the data inside a session, you'll need some central location to put this logic. See how to create a session based model in this episode.

#118 Liquid Jul 14, 2008

Liquid is a safe way to provide a powerful template language to the site's users. See how in this episode.

#117 Semi-Static Pages Jul 07, 2008

Static pages can sometimes be a little awkward to add to a Rails app. See a couple different solutions to this problem in this episode.

#116 Selenium Jun 30, 2008

Selenium is a great way to test your app automatically through a browser. See how it works in this episode.

#115 Caching in Rails 2.1 Jun 23, 2008

Rails 2.1 brings some new caching features which makes it very easy to cache any values including models. See how in this episode.

#114 Endless Page Jun 16, 2008

Ever wondered how some sites seem to have endless scrolling page with no pagination? Find out how easy it is to do this in Rails in this episode.

#113 Contributing to Rails with Git Jun 09, 2008

If you want Rails to behave a certain way, try changing it and submitting a patch. This episode will show how to do exactly this using Git.

#112 Anonymous Scopes Jun 02, 2008

The scoped method allows you to generate named scopes on the fly. In this episode I show how to use anonymous scopes to improve the conditional logic which was used in the previous episode on advanced search form.

#111 Advanced Search Form May 26, 2008

If you need to create an advanced search with a lot of fields, it may not be ideal to use a GET request as I showed in episode 37. In this episode I will show you how to handle this by creating a Search resource.

#110 Gem Dependencies May 23, 2008

In Rails 2.1 we now have the ability to set gem dependencies. Now it's easier than ever to specify which ruby gems our rails app relies on.

#109 Tracking Attribute Changes May 21, 2008

Rails 2.1 keeps track of the changes you make to a model's attributes. It also allows you to see what the previous value was. But watch out for the gotcha! See this episode for details.

#108 named_scope May 19, 2008

The named_scope method in Rails 2.1 makes performing finds on models very elegant and convenient. See how in this episode.

#107 Migrations in Rails 2.1 May 16, 2008

Migrations now have a timestamp as their version number in Rails 2.1. In this episode I will explain this change as well as show you some other cool additions.

#106 Time Zones in Rails 2.1 May 14, 2008

In the past, time zones have been very difficult to work with, but no longer! Rails 2.1 brings with it great time zone support as you can see in this episode.

#105 Gitting Rails 2.1 RC1 May 12, 2008

Rails 2.1 Release Candidate 1 was just released! In this episode I will show you how to install it into your Rails project.

#104 Exception Notifications May 05, 2008

If you're running a production site, it's a good idea to record all exceptions which occur. See how to set up a notification system which does that in this episode.

#103 Site Wide Announcements Apr 28, 2008

Sometimes you need to display an administrative announcement to every page on the site and give the users the ability to hide the announcement. See how in this episode.

#102 Auto-Complete Association Apr 21, 2008

Usually a select menu is used for setting a belongs_to association, but in this episode I will show you how to use a text field with auto completion.

#101 Refactoring Out Helper Object Apr 14, 2008

If you have complex view logic, this can easily lead to helper methods which call each other. See how to refactor this out into another object in this episode. This is also known as the presenter pattern.

#100 5 View Tips Apr 07, 2008

Here's five quick tips to use in views. Be sure to catch the end of the episode where I reveal an exciting contest!

#99 Complex Partials Mar 31, 2008

How do you handle partials which have differences depending on the action which is rendering them? Here's three suggestions for this problem.

#98 Request Profiling Mar 24, 2008

You can use profiling to determine where the performance bottlenecks are in specific Rails actions. Watch this episode for details.

#97 Analyzing the Production Log Mar 17, 2008

In order to improve performance of your Rails application you need to find the bottlenecks. A great starting point is your production log. In this episode you will see how to use RAWK to analyze your log file and determine which controller actions take up the most processing time.

#96 Git on Rails Mar 10, 2008

Git has been getting a lot of buzz lately, and for good reason. It's an excellent SCM which in many ways is more simple and powerful than subversion. See how to set up a Rails project with Git in this episode.

#95 More on ActiveResource Mar 02, 2008

See how to handle authentication and custom actions using ActiveResource in this episode.

#94 ActiveResource Basics Feb 24, 2008

ActiveResource allows you to easily communicate between multiple Rails applications. See how in this episode.

#93 Action Caching Feb 17, 2008

Action caching behaves much like page caching except it processes the controller filters. You can also make it conditional as seen in this episode.

#92 make_resourceful Feb 10, 2008

The make_resourceful plugin is a great way to DRY up the 7 RESTful actions common in most controllers. Learn how to use it in this episode.

#91 Refactoring Long Methods Feb 03, 2008

In this episode I walk you through an exercise in refactoring by taking a long method and making it more concise.

#90 Fragment Caching Jan 27, 2008

Sometimes you only want to cache a section of a page instead of the entire page. Fragment caching is the answer as shown in this episode.

#89 Page Caching Jan 20, 2008

Page caching is an efficient way to cache stateless content. In this episode I will show you how to cache the dynamic javascript we created last week.

#88 Dynamic Select Menus Jan 13, 2008

See how to dynamically change a select menu based on another select menu using Javascript. In this episode everything is kept client side which leads to a more responsive user interface.

#87 Generating RSS Feeds Jan 06, 2008

See how to easily generate and link to an RSS feed using new features in Rails 2.0. Watch this episode or details.

#86 Logging Variables Dec 30, 2007

Have you ever wanted to easily log all variables? Now you can by using some advanced Ruby concepts as shown in this episode.

#85 YAML Configuration File Dec 23, 2007

Application configuration shouldn't be spread throughout your code base. Instead a much better place to put it is an external YAML file. See how to do that in this episode.

#84 Cookie Based Session Store Dec 16, 2007

In Rails 1.2 the default session store is file based. This is inefficient and difficult to maintain. In Rails 2.0 the default is now cookie based which has several benefits as you will see in this episode.

#83 Migrations in Rails 2.0 Dec 09, 2007

Migrations are now sexy in Rails 2.0! In this episode we will take a look at these improvements and the related rake tasks.

#82 HTTP Basic Authentication Dec 02, 2007

Rails 2.0 offers an extremely easy way to do HTTP basic authentication. See how in this episode.

#81 Fixtures in Rails 2.0 Nov 25, 2007

In Rails 2.0, fixtures see many improvements which makes them much easier to manage. Watch this episode for details.

#80 Simplify Views with Rails 2.0 Nov 18, 2007

Rails 2.0 is almost here. One of the many features in this release is the smarter helper methods which can make your views much cleaner. Learn all about it in this Episode.

#79 Generate Named Routes Nov 11, 2007

This more advanced episode will show you how to dynamically generate named routes by adding a method to the map object.

#78 Generating PDF Documents Nov 04, 2007

In this episode I will show you how to create PDF documents using the excellent PDF::Writer gem.

#77 Destroy Without JavaScript Oct 29, 2007

If the user has JavaScript disabled, the "Destroy" link might not work properly. In this episode I will explore a number of ways to work around this issue.

#76 scope_out Oct 22, 2007

The scope_out plugin will generate several helpful find methods for you automatically! It's the best way to move the find conditions into your model. Watch this episode for details.

#75 Complex Forms Part 3 Oct 15, 2007

In this third and final episode on complex forms I will show you how to edit a project and multiple tasks all in one form. This includes removing and adding tasks dynamically as well. See the show notes for updated code.

#74 Complex Forms Part 2 Oct 08, 2007

See how to use Javascript and RJS to add and remove form fields dynamically. This episode will build upon the previous episode allowing you to create any number of tasks in one form the same time a project is created.

#73 Complex Forms Part 1 Oct 01, 2007

Complex forms often lead to complex controllers, but that doesn't have to be the case. In this episode see how you can create multiple models through a single form while keeping the controller clean.

#72 Adding an Environment Sep 24, 2007

Rails comes with three environments: development, test, and production. But, you aren't restricted to just these. You can add your own! See how in this episode.

#71 Testing Controllers with RSpec Sep 17, 2007

Controllers are tricky to test, and there's no perfect way to do it. In this episode you will see how I test controllers, and my reasoning behind it.

#70 Custom Routes Sep 10, 2007

In this episode you will learn how to add custom routes, make some parameters optional, and add requirements for other parameters.

#69 Markaby in Helper Sep 03, 2007

Do you ever need to generate HTML code in a helper method? Placing it directly in Ruby strings is not very pretty. Learn a great way to generate HTML through Markaby in this episode.

#68 OpenID Authentication Aug 27, 2007

Ever wonder how to implement OpenID authentication in your Rails app? This episode will show you how to add it to a site with an existing authentication system.

#67 restful_authentication Aug 20, 2007

Need multiple user authentication? If so, the restful_authentication plugin is a great way to go. It will generate some basic authentication code for you which is good starting point to your authentication system. Watch this episode for details.

#66 Custom Rake Tasks Aug 13, 2007

Rake is one of those tools that you don't realize how powerful it is until you start using it. In this episode you will learn how to create custom rake tasks and improve them by using rake features.

#65 Stopping Spam with Akismet Aug 06, 2007

The Railscasts site has been getting a lot of comment spam in the past, but no longer. In this episode I will show you how I solved this problem by using the Akismet web service.

#64 Custom Helper Modules Jul 30, 2007

Rails designates one helper module per controller, but that shouldn't stop you from making custom helper modules to help structure the code. Learn how in this episode.

#63 Model Name in URL Jul 27, 2007

By default, Rails uses the model's id in the URL. What if you want to use the name of the model instead? You can change this behavior by overriding the to_param method in the model. Watch this episode for details.

#62 Hacking ActiveRecord Jul 25, 2007

Have you ever wanted to temporarily disable all validations? Well, ActiveRecord doesn't support this, but that doesn't mean we can't add it. This episode will show you how to open up an existing class and change its behavior.

#61 Sending Email Jul 23, 2007

This is a brief guide to sending email in Rails. See how to configure the environment, generate a mailer, create a template, and deliver the mail.

#60 Testing without Fixtures Jul 20, 2007

Tests which rely heavily on fixtures are brittle and can be difficult to maintain. This episode will show a couple techniques for creating tests which don't use fixtures.

#59 Optimistic Locking Jul 18, 2007

When two people attempt to update the same record near the same time, one of the updates will likely be overwritten. You can solve this problem with optimistic locking.

#58 How to Make a Generator Jul 16, 2007

Rails comes with many built-in generators, but what if you want to customize them or make your own? Rails gives you a great way to do this which you will learn in this episode.

#57 Create Model Through Text Field Jul 13, 2007

Let's say you provide a select menu for setting which category a given product belongs to, but you also want the option of creating a new category by typing the name in a text field. See a great way to do that in this episode.

#56 The Logger Jul 11, 2007

Learn all about the logger in this episode. See how to send messages to the log and how to customize it.

#55 Cleaning Up the View Jul 09, 2007

This episode starts off with a big, messy template. Watch as this code shrinks and becomes more readable while the interface stays the same.

#54 Debugging with ruby-debug Jul 06, 2007

This episode will show you how to debug a rails app using ruby-debug: set a breakpoint, inspect variables, change the code and more.

#53 Handling Exceptions Jul 04, 2007

When an exception is raised in development you get the full error along with the stack trace. In production, only a simple message is displayed. Learn why this is and how to customize the handling of exceptions.

#52 Update through Checkboxes Jul 02, 2007

See how to select multiple items using checkboxes and perform an action on the selected items in this episode.

#51 will_paginate Jun 29, 2007

In edge rails (soon to be Rails 2.0), the built-in pagination has been moved into a plugin: classic_pagination. I recommend jumping over to the will_paginate plugin as shown in this episode.

#50 Contributing to Rails Jun 27, 2007

The best way to contribute to the Rails project is to submit a patch. This episode shows how to do exactly that. There's also a surprise at the end that you don't want to miss!

#49 Reading the API Jun 25, 2007

The Rails API docs are very useful but can be difficult to read. This episode will give some tips on reading the docs and mention a few alternative sites for accessing the API. Update: sorry about the broken movie, it should work now.

#48 Console Tricks Jun 22, 2007

The Rails console is one of my favorite tools. This episode is packed with tips and tricks on how to get the most out of the console.

#47 Two Many-to-Many Jun 20, 2007

There are two different ways to set up a many-to-many association in Rails. In this episode you will see how to implement both ways along with some tips on choosing the right one for your project.

#46 Catch-all Route Jun 18, 2007

Sometimes you need to add complex/dynamic routes. This is often impossible to do in routes.rb, but do not worry. It can be accomplished with a catch-all route. See how in this episode.

#45 RJS Tips Jun 15, 2007

This episode is packed with little RJS goodies. Learn the different ways to access an element, how to add "if" conditions and how to apply an effect to multiple elements.

#44 Debugging RJS Jun 13, 2007

RJS and AJAX can be difficult to debug. Many times you don't get any error message in the browser. Learn different techniques for solving these tricky problems in this episode.

#43 AJAX with RJS Jun 11, 2007

This episode will walk you through adding AJAX functionality to a form using RJS. See how to easily update multiple elements on a page.

#42 with_options Jun 08, 2007

Several methods in rails take a hash of options as the last argument. If you are passing the same options to several methods, you can remove this duplication by using with_options. Learn all about it in this episode.

#41 Conditional Validations Jun 06, 2007

By default, validations will take place every time the model is saved. Sometimes you only want a validation to happen when certain conditions are met. See how to do that in this episode.

#40 Blocks in View Jun 04, 2007

If you try to create a helper method which accepts a block, you will run into a few gotchas. Learn the secrets of blocks in views in this episode.

#39 Customize Field Error Jun 01, 2007

When a validation error occurs, Rails helpfully wraps the field in a div tag so you can style it. But sometimes you don't want this behavior. In this episode you will see how to customize it.

#38 Multibutton Form May 30, 2007

If you have a form with multiple buttons, you can detect which button was clicked by checking the passed parameters. Learn how in this episode.

#37 Simple Search Form May 28, 2007

A search form is quite different than other forms, this is because it does not deal with model's attributes. See a good way to add a simple search form in this episode.

#36 Subversion on Rails May 25, 2007

This episode will walk you through setting up a Rails project on subversion. It covers some helpful tips and gotchas you may experience along the way.

#35 Custom REST Actions May 23, 2007

REST adds many constraints. It restricts your controllers to seven actions. Normally this is okay, but sometimes you need to add your own custom actions. Learn how in this episode.

#34 Named Routes May 21, 2007

When you add a custom route, make it a named route so you have url helper methods to easily link to that new route. See episode for details.

#33 Making a Plugin May 18, 2007

You can sometimes remove a lot of duplication by generating methods dynamic. In this episode I will show you how to create a plugin which does exactly that.

#32 Time in Text Field May 16, 2007

Although Rails does allow you to edit time attributes with text fields, it's not very flexible. In this episode you will learn how to use a virtual attribute to format the time to your liking.

#31 Formatting Time May 14, 2007

Learn how to use the trusty strftime method to format a time, and see how Rails allows you to save this format for later use.

#30 Pretty Page Title May 11, 2007

If you are like me, you avoid creating page titles because it is kind of a pain. But in this episode I will show you a clean way to add titles to your pages.

#29 group_by Month May 09, 2007

Learn how to use the very useful group_by method to group an array by anything you want! In this episode I group an array of tasks by month then sort it properly.

#28 in_groups_of May 07, 2007

Have you ever wanted to visually line up items in rows and columns? The in_groups_of method makes this a cinch. Just watch out for the gotcha.

#27 Cross Site Scripting May 04, 2007

Another common security issue is cross site scripting. In this episode you will see why it is so important to escape any HTML a user may submit.

#26 Hackers Love Mass Assignment May 02, 2007

Your site may be at risk! When using mass assignment, you are giving the user complete control over that model and its associations. See how a hacker might use this vulnerability and learn how to stop it in this episode.

#25 SQL Injection Apr 30, 2007

One of the most common security problems for dynamic sites is SQL Injection. Thankfully Rails does everything it can in solving this issue, but you still need to be aware of it.

#24 The Stack Trace Apr 27, 2007

The stack trace can be a very useful tool when it comes to debugging. Learn the ins and outs of how the stack trace works in this episode. Note: I am using an older version of the Rails bundle here so it might be a little different than yours. The command in the newer version is called Install Plugin and requires you to type textmate_footnotes in the search.

#23 Counter Cache Column Apr 25, 2007

If you need to display the record count for a has_many association, you can improve performance by caching that number in a column.

#22 Eager Loading Apr 23, 2007

One way to improve performance is to cut down on the number of SQL queries. You can do this through eager loading. Learn all about it in this episode!

#21 Super Simple Authentication Apr 20, 2007

The final piece of the administration puzzle: authentication. There are many different approaches which is why I saved this step for last. This episode will cover a few techniques including the simple solution used for this site.

#20 Restricting Access Apr 18, 2007

In this second part of the series on administration, you will learn how to lock down the site to keep the public from accessing the administration features.

#19 Where Administration Goes Apr 16, 2007

This is the first part of a three part series on building an administration system. Many developers choose to separate it completely from the public side of the site by placing it into an admin subdirectory. This episode will show you an alternative and often better solution.

#18 Looping Through Flash Apr 13, 2007

Displaying flash messages in the layout can be a pain at times. In this episode you will learn an easy way to display any kind of flash message by looping through the hash.

#17 HABTM Checkboxes Apr 11, 2007

It is often asked: how do I create a list of checkboxes for managing a HABTM association? Ask no more because this episode will show you how to do exactly that.

#16 Virtual Attributes Apr 09, 2007

Keep your controllers clean and forms flexible by adding virtual attributes to your model. This very powerful technique allows you to create form fields which may not directly relate to the database.

#15 Fun with Find Conditions Apr 06, 2007

You can pass more than simple strings to find conditions. Arrays, ranges, and nil values can be passed as well. In this episode you will see the tricks involved with passing these odd objects to find conditions. (Update: audio fixed).

#14 Performing Calculations on Models Apr 04, 2007

Did you know ActiveRecord provides class methods for performing calculations on models? You can even use these methods through associations.

#13 Dangers of Model in Session Apr 02, 2007

Be careful when storing a model in a session. It will behave differently than you expect and can easily get out of sync with the database. Instead of storing the model directly in the session, store the id to the model and use that to fetch it from the database.

#12 Refactoring User Name Part 3 Mar 30, 2007

In the final part of this series you will see how to refactor your tests. Keeping tests clean is important because it will make testing easier to do in the future.

#11 Refactoring User Name Part 2 Mar 28, 2007

Testing and refactoring go hand in hand. Refactoring is all about improving code without changing its behavior. Testing is all about making sure you don't change the behavior while you are improving the code.

#10 Refactoring User Name Part 1 Mar 26, 2007

Learn how to clean up your code through refactoring. This episode will show you how to move code from the view into the model to remove duplication and simplify the view.

#9 Filtering Sensitive Logs Mar 23, 2007

Are you accepting sensitive user data? Passwords, credit card numbers, etc. By default, Rails stores all submitted parameters in plain text in the logs. This episode will show you how to filter this sensitive input so it doesn't show up in the log file.

#8 Layouts and content_for Mar 21, 2007

If you want to change something in the layout on a per-template basis, content_for is your answer! This allows templates to specify view code that can be placed anywhere in a layout.

#7 All About Layouts Mar 19, 2007

Everything you wanted to know about layouts: global layouts, controller layouts, shared layouts, dynamic layouts and action layouts. Yes, there really are that many ways to specify a layout.

#6 Shortcut Blocks with Symbol to_proc Mar 16, 2007

It may have a goofy syntax, but the Symbol#to_proc feature Rails adds allows you to do simple blocks very quickly and easily.

#5 Using with_scope Mar 14, 2007

Learn how to use with_scope - a very powerful method which will allow your custom find methods to accept any find options. Just like magic!

#4 Move Find into Model Mar 12, 2007

Move a find into the model to clean up the controllers and remove duplication. Also see how you can call these custom find methods through an association.

#3 Find Through Association Mar 08, 2007

No need to pass foreign keys in find conditions, just do the find through a has_many association.

#2 Dynamic find_by Methods Mar 06, 2007

Shorten simple finds considerably and improve readability by using the dynamic find_all_by and find_by methods.

#1 Caching with Instance Variables Mar 04, 2007

Learn a quick way to improve performance. Just store the end result of an expensive command in an instance variable!

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