On Miércoles, 8 de Septiembre de 2010 08:31:12 jack dempsey escribió: > I recently tried using ActiveScaffold in a simple application of mine. > I've found the process extremely frustrating and had basically given > up. After looking through some of the other common choices for admin > type interfaces, I'm looking at ActiveScaffold again, as the other > choices are even more frustrating. > > This is of course my opinion, but as a user new to this lib, I would > expect some semblance of an ability to get things running without too > much hassle. > > So, I setup the basics, added active_scaffold :model to a controller, > and then set about to try things out. > > Things blow up immediately with an error about a route not matching > show_search. Search? I'm not even thinking about search yet. Why is > this a default that can't work on its own?
Because is useful and is commonly used. Many features as subforms or nested scaffols needs additional routes too, so setting :active_scaffold => true to your map.resources is a common step to setup ActiveScaffold, as adding active_scaffold :model to the controller. Have you read getting started guide? > > I eventually find the API docs and figure out some way of avoiding the > search action. I try loading things up again. > > This time it bombs with an error about edit_associated something or > other. Ok...I comment out the has_and_belongs_to_many call in my model > and refresh. Voila, the page loads! So after that first success I go > back and try to figure out what to do next. After trying a variety of > things I somehow get it to work, sort of. > > So, in short, I think you've done an incredible job of trying to > handle a huge variety of situations and use cases. I know this stuff > is complex and I can only imagine the time put into the project. I > don't send this with any sort of entitlement or feeling that anyone > owes me something. Quite the contrary. > > However, I do think there are some basic improvements that could be > made that would hugely help people get up and get going with > ActiveScaffold. > > 1. if configuration is needed for an option, don't include it in the > defaults. Don't make me think about search when I may not even want > it. Don't make me add in other methods, routes, links, or whatever if > I just want to get a simple scaffolding view of some models going. > It's so much better to opt-in to the more advanced capabilities once > ready than force them on a user to start with. > > 2. A certain amount of configuration is acceptable of course. For > instance, adding in include helpers, changing things like what js > framework to use, etc. makes a lot of sense to me. I still don't like > having to do that sort of thing each time I want to generate a new > idea, so I've wrapped it up in a rails 3 compatible recipe in a > project of mine, which you can see here: > http://github.com/jackdempsey/beet/blob/master/lib/beet/recipes/rails3/admi >n_interface/active_scaffold.rb > > The line I would draw though is using beet to setup config options in > a controller to exclude search and so on as a default. I really think > that should be the default choice from the lib itself. > > 3. If certain choices remain standard, then it'd be great to have a > small section of "this is what you need to do to get going", showing > configs for search, how to setup edit_associated urls, and other > things like that. There may very well be this sort of page out there, > but I couldn't find it, and gave up after a good amount of searching. > > > The reason I'm so frustrated is that this project is so close to being > something amazingly useful for me and I imagine many others, but these > first stumbling steps were almost enough to make me want to quit > trying and not look back, and that would be a shame. > > I'm not one to complain and expect others to code for me. I'd be happy > to help document things (once I understand them better) and engage in > a discussion about defaults, how easy it should or shouldn't be to get > up and running, etc. At this point though I don't want to jump back in > without a better sense of hope that each new thing I try to do won't > be broken to start, and force me to scour pages looking for a fix. Is > > Thank you for the time, effort, and consideration put into AS. I truly > appreciate it and hope I can help with improving it even more. > > best, > Jack -- Sergio Cambra .:: entreCables S.L. ::. Mariana Pineda 23, 50.018 Zaragoza T) 902 021 404 F) 976 52 98 07 E) [email protected] -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "ActiveScaffold : Ruby on Rails plugin" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/activescaffold?hl=en.
