Hi Folks,
As the development editor for The Pragmatic Programmer's line of screencasts, I'm excited to announce that the new "Mastering Rails Forms" screencast series by Ryan Bates is now available:
http://pragprog.com/screencasts/v-rbforms/mastering-rails-forms
The first three episodes cover topics including:
- form essentials - creating pull-down menus for one-to-many associations - using checkboxes for many-to-many associations - changing the contents of any validation error message - customizing how form errors are displayed - displaying form errors inline next to invalid form fields - validating forms before a submit using AJAX - using existing model validations to mark a field as being required - creating custom form builders
Whether you've been using Rails for a few days or a few years, you'll likely learn something new in each of these episodes. I sure did! I've been using and teaching Rails for years, and figured I knew almost everything about building forms. But I have to admit that by watching these screencasts I learned several new tricks that I'll be adding back into my Rails applications.
Ryan has a real knack for solving thorny problems in elegant ways, and I enjoy watching him work. He also has a five-part "Everyday Active Record" screencast series you may be interested in:
http://pragprog.com/screencasts/v-rbar/everyday-active-record
All the source code for these screencasts is available, and please stop by the screencast forums if you have any questions.
Thanks for your support of these screencasts!
Mike Clark