Open Source Projects, Tools, & Resources

BBRails Toolkit: Ruby on Rails Productivity Tools for BBEdit

The BBRails Toolkit consists of a number of scripts for BBEdit designed to streamline the Ruby on Rails development process. The Toolkit is based on a simple underlying principle: performing routine tasks related to developing, deploying, and testing Rails apps should not necessarily require a trip to Terminal. The BBRails Toolkit integrates BBEdit with a number of command-line tools (including Capistrano, Rake, Reek, and more) and brings common tasks only one menu-click or keyboard shortcut away. And because the scripts are just AppleScript, instead of compiled plug-ins, they’re extensible and hackable.

The BBRails Toolkit is featured on the Bare Bones BBEdit support and resources page, and is currently the only 3rd-party resource to have that distinction.

For more information, refer to the Read Me included with the download, or the original announcement from the blog.

Rails Cheat Sheets for BBEdit

This script addition integrates the cheat gem to let you access cheat sheets from within BBEdit. To use the script, highlight a term in a BBEdit window (like strftime) and either use a keyboard shortcut or select the script from the Scripts menu item. A new window will open, populated with the cheatsheet. If you invoke the script without first highlighting anything, you will be presented with a dialog box from which you can enter the name of a specific cheat sheet, get help with Cheat, or access a list of available cheat sheets.

RDoctor: Mac OS X RDoc Browser

RDoctor provides quick and convenient access to the documentation for all of the RubyGems installed on your local machine. It is essentially a simple, single-purpose web browser specifically designed to browse local rdocs. You can also use RDoctor to generate documentation for plugins that are part of your Ruby on Rails projects.

Download it now, or read the RDoctor announcement from the blog for more information.

Rails Active Record Relationships Cheat Sheet (PDF)

Even though there are only a handful of methods involved, ActiveRecord relationships can sometimes be a little confusing to newcomers; and even when you’ve got the big picture down, you might need help remembering the small details, like where to put the foreign key. To that end, I created a simple flowchart that guides you through the process of setting up your ActiveRecord associations. It’s pinned to the wall next to my desk; hopefully you’ll find it a handy reference as well.

BBEdit Ruby on Rails Text Clippings Quick Reference (PDF)

Clippings make short work of Rails coding in BBEdit. Clippings are just snippets of code that can be inserted with a few key presses, and BBEdit 9 comes with two sets just for Rails development: Ruby, and Ruby in HTML. I created this quick reference sheet that organizes all of the Rails-related clippings on one page, suitable for hanging on the wall near your desk.

PlusXBit

PlusXBit lets you set the execute bit on any file without a trip to Terminal. From Finder, just select one or more files and click the “PlusXBit” icon in your Finder toolbar.

Download it using the link on the left, or read more about this and other Terminal toolbar scripts for details.

RunDotSlash

RunDotSlash makes it easy to move between Finder and Terminal and work with UNIX scripts and executables. You can use it to open the current Finder window in Terminal by simply clicking the RunDotSlash icon in your toolbar with nothing selected. To execute a file in Terminal, just select it in Finder and click the RunDotSlash icon.

Download it using the link on the left, or read more about this and other Terminal toolbar scripts for details.

UML Stencil for OmniGraffle

If you’re a Mac user and a developer, then you should know about OmniGraffle– the ultimate diagramming software. I’ve created a simple, clean, and attractive UML stencil for use with OmniGraffle, and around 7500 of your peers have downloaded it so far. Download the OmniGraffle UML stencil here and see what you think.

Acts As Audited

acts_as_audited is an ActiveRecord extension that logs all changes to your models in an audits table. My fork addresses an issue that arises when a plugin (such as restful_authentication) provides the current_user method to the application controller, causing the audit sweeper to fail to retrieve the current user. For more information, see acts_as_audited repository at Github.

Background-Fu

Background-Fu is a Ruby Gem that makes background tasks in Ruby On Rails made dead simple. My contributions are in the master tree, and include configuration options for cleaning up completed background jobs. For more information, see background-fu repository at Github.

Inflect This

Inflect This is a centralized module for supporting irregular inflections in Rails. The Rails Core team will not correct any missing singularization/pluralization exceptions in the built-in inflector, for fear of messing up people’s legacy table names. Instead, they recommend adding custom inflections to your environment.rb file. In an attempt to DRY up custom inflections across the community, Inflect This provides a centralized location for collecting these custom inflections. Find it on GitHub at http://github.com/Bantik/inflect_this.

RCov

Rcov is a code coverage tool for Ruby, commonly used for viewing overall test coverage of target code. I revamped the HTML output of the coverage report to improve readability, added row highlighting, implemented sortable columns for better usability, and added support for custom CSS. For more information, see my fork of the RCov repository at Github and my blog post about improved HTML output with RCov.

Related Select Forms

This plugin adds a new helper to the Ruby on Rails framework that simplifies the creation of multiple, dependent HTML select tags. I added support for passing arguments to the :include_blank attribute consisting of true, false (default), a string, or a two-element array, bringing the helper in line with the standard Rails select form helper. For more information, see the related_select_forms plugin repository at Github.