More automatic/DRY form generation and maintenance?

rubyonrails-talk
1

Hi,

I have been using Rails for some time (working on my first project now) and I am wondering whether I am missing something obvious. There are so many automatisms and conventions in the Rails code that there must be a way to do this.

When I create a Model, I can specify restrictions and connections to other models. E.g.

class User < AR...         validates_length_of :name, :minimum => 5, :maximum => 10         validates_format_of ...         # etc. end

So ...

1. When I decide to rename a column via a migration, is there a way to automatically push this change through existing code? Say I want to split "name" up into "surname" and "firstname". Do I really have to manually dig through my code and do the replacement manually everywhere? I could rig up an attr_accessor "name" that returns firstname + " " + surname, but for unchanged scaffolds and controllers, I would expect a rerun of "generate scaffold" (etc) to create the new "correct" scaffolds.

2. If I have an object (= database column) that has multiple restrictions, and want to create a basic CRUD model, (how) can I autogenerate

  2a. JS code that checks for e.g. format, length, etc. restrictions to be OK using onSubmit()?   2b. AJAX code that checks for server-side restrictions (eg uniqueness) "on-line", e.g. onBlur()?   2c. links to connected tables? E.g.:         - "User :has_many phonenumbers" should result in a link           "Add phonenumber" when editing the user, or similar)         - "User :has_one car" should result in an appropriate SELECT field         - etc.

3. Can I easily design my own "default templates" for scaffolds and/or trestles? Some default CSS and additional features would be nice and DRY.

So far, so good ... :wink: I'd appreciate any pointers or help on these.

Thanks!