Cowell Computer Consulting

Static Pages in Rails

luke@talesa.net (Luke Cowell) — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 02:22:00 GMT

I just read an interesting post on how to handle static pages in rails and I had a different approach that I wanted to share. There's lots of different ways to do this and each method has its own merit.

When I say static page, I mean any page that doesn't fit into your other controllers. This might be an about us or a contact page or anything else that might not require a dedicated controller to handle.

In routes.rb, I would set something like this up:

map.static '/static/:id', :controller => "static", :action => "show"

We can grab the name of the page from params[:id] in the controller. Feel free to change the name 'id' some something else if it gives you that wrong feeling to treat something as an id that isn't really an id.

Next, I define a controller called static.


class StaticController < ApplicationController
  def show
     short_name = params[:id]
     begin
       render short_name
     rescue ActionView::MissingPageTemplate
       render :file => "#{RAILS_ROOT}/public/404.html", :status => 404
     end
   end
end

So, what's happening here? We know we have an params[:id] or the route wouldn't match. We then call a begin block, so that we can rescue the exception. Which, in our case, is if someone passes an invalid filename through or the page hasn't yet been defined under app/views/static/pagename.html.erb. We just handle it as a 404.

What about if we want our static pages to live in a namespace without /static at the beginning ? ie. /about instead of /static/about

Define a regular expression that matches all the pages you want to support.

STATIC_PAGES = %w(about contact fun_facts)
STATIC_REGEXP = %r{#{STATIC_PAGES.join("|")}}

Then, in your routes file use the requirements parameter to match only these pages.

map.static ':id', :controller => "static", :action => "show", :requirements => {:id => STATIC_REGEXP}

This is just another approach and there are lots of ways to do this. I was inspired by Yehuda Katz to write this as he recently wrote a post about giving back to the community. Also, be sure to check out his posts about rails 3.

Fix for inDesign CS3 crashes

luke@talesa.net (Luke Cowell) — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 05:17:00 GMT

If inDesign is crashing when you quit it, launch it, when you activate fonts or at any other time, you should consider removing or replacing the following file:

$HOME/Library/Preferences/Adobe\ InDesign/Version\ 5.0/InDesign\ Defaults

It appears to contain font information among other things. You care about this because if you were to have activated a corrupt font, or a font with a duplicate postscript name, your problems may continue even after you resolve the font issue because that font will still be cached in here.

eg.

...
@Semibold
@MyriadPro-Semibold
@Myriad Pro Semibold
@Semibold
@Myriad Pro Semibold
8@Version 2.007;PS 002.000;Core 1.0.38;makeotf.lib1.7.9032
@Semibold Italic
@MyriadPro-SemiboldIt
@Myriad Pro Semibold Italic
@Semibold Italic
...

iPhone recovery mode vs. DFU mode

luke@talesa.net (Luke Cowell) — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 23:46:00 GMT

DFU mode and recovery mode are different. Here's how to get tot either one.

To put your phone in DFU mode:

Turn your iPhone off
press and hold the home and sleep/wake button for 10 seconds
release the sleep wake button and hold the home button for 10 more seconds

To put your phone in recovery mode follow these steps:

Disconnect the USB cable from the iPhone
Turn your iPhone off
Press and hold the home button while connecting the USB cable to your device.
iTunes should now display a message to indicate you are in recovery mode

Installing rmagick on OS X

luke@talesa.net (Luke Cowell) — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 14:59:00 GMT

For some reason the gem tries to build against a PPC library, which on my intel machine, doesn't not work.

sudo su -
ARCHFLAGS='-arch i386' gem install rmagick

Note: you might need to fix the quotes.

Linotype FontExplorer Settings via command line

luke@talesa.net (Luke Cowell) — Mon, 25 May 2009 13:31:00 GMT

Finding setting keys for Linotype Font Explorer

There's lots more and they're easy to figure out.

defaults read com.linotype.FontExplorerX > a

Now make your setting change in Font Explorer - it works best to quit at this point.

defaults read com.linotype.FontExplorerX > a
diff a b

The output of the diff will tell you what keys changed.

This output from diff:

fontRequestsAutoActivate = 1;

Becomes:

defaults write com.linotype.FontExplorerX fontRequestsAutoActivate 1

A list of keys I've found useful

Here are a list of linotype keys that I've found useful in configuring workstations settings.

If a font from a different path with the same name is imported, remove the old one and re-add

defaults write com.linotype.FontExplorerX sameFont_importingAdjustments 1
defaults write com.linotype.FontExplorerX sameFont_useGlobalImportingAdjustments 1

Remove and re-add a font if imported from the same path

defaults write com.linotype.FontExplorerX samePath_importingAdjustments
defaults write com.linotype.FontExplorerX samePath_useGlobalImportingAdjustments

When a duplicate font is requested deactivate the current font and activate the requested font without warning

defaults write com.linotype.FontExplorerX hideActivationWarning  1
defaults write com.linotype.FontExplorerX hideActivationWarningOption  1

When activating a font activate the entire suitcase

defaults write com.linotype.FontExplorerX alwaysActivateSuitcase 1

Deactivate Fonts when linotype quits

defaults write com.linotype.FontExplorerX deactivateFontsFromSessionOnQuit 1

Autoactivate fonts when possible

defaults write com.linotype.FontExplorerX fontRequestsAutoActivate 1

Contributing to the Community

luke@talesa.net (Luke Cowell) — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 16:13:00 GMT

I'm proud to announce I made my first real contribution to the ruby / ROR community. I added a current quiz feature to the ruby quiz site and added an RSS feed to the site for all quizzes and solutions.

Announcement http://www.ruby-forum.com/topic/183984#809279

Ruby Quiz RSS Feed: http://rubyquiz.strd6.com/quizzes.rs

Ruby Quiz Site: http://rubyquiz.strd6.com/

The Lie

luke@talesa.net (Luke Cowell) — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 15:23:00 GMT

Fixtures Suck:

http://techno-weenie.net/2009/2/9/the-lie

Machinist Doesn't:

http://github.com/notahat/machinist/tree/master

Blueprint CSS

luke@talesa.net (Luke Cowell) — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 15:14:00 GMT

Blueprint CSS does a bunch of different things, but this is what really interests me: “A CSS reset that eliminates the discrepancies across browsers.”

This means that many of those annoying quirks (ie your layout is broken in Firefox or more likely IE) may be a thing of the past.

Hooray!

http://www.blueprintcss.org

Well that's Iterating

luke@talesa.net (Luke Cowell) — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 08:43:00 GMT

A great page explaining different iterators available in ruby.

Read about it here.

Compromising Window Positions

luke@talesa.net (Luke Cowell) — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 02:52:00 GMT

I recently had a reader write in about a problem with their Mail program. Here's what they had to say:

Dear Luke Cowell,

I am a big fan of your blog, where you explain how to make beautiful christmas trees out of incomprehensible code that outputs a hilarious parody version of "The Twelve Days of Christmas" that I don't really get.

Perhaps you can do a blog about why my Mac Mail program doesn't save my window size settings. When I close the program, and re-open it later, the window is small, and the "preview" pane, which I like to have hidden, takes up half the window.

Sincerely,

Murray Inkster
Vancouver, BC

Dear Murray,

Thank you for writing in. Apple mail stores most of its preferences in a file called com.apple.mail.plist. This is located in your home directory, under Library/Preferences. Make a backup of this file.

Quit Mail and open terminal and paste the following lines in: defaults delete com.apple.mail ActiveViewers defaults delete com.apple.mail ActiveSingleViewers

These will delete any information Mail.app has about window position and will hopefully allow you to put your windows in all sorts of compromising positions again.

If that doesn't work you could also try deleting the com.apple.mail.plist file I mentioned above. Be warned that you'll need to set up your mail rules and accounts all over again.

Hope this helps,

Luke Cowell
www.lukecowell.com