Installing Ruby on Rails on Win 7

As a Windows user the easiest way to get Ruby running on your machine is by using Ruby Installer. This is a self-contained Windows-based installer that includes the Ruby language, an execution environment, important documentation, and more.
1. Simply go to Ruby Installer for Windows Download Page and select the MSI installer files. In this tutorials I assumed that you will select the latest version or Ruby which is Ruby 1.9.2. So you will need to download the Ruby 1.9.2-p0.
2. After downloading the installer file, run it and accept the terms then on the installation destination and optional tasks page, browse to the location you want your installed files to be located “I prefer to make a folder called Ruby on the same partition where Windows folder are”. and don’t forget to check the check boxes as in the figure below.

3. We have to make sure that our Ruby installation was successful. So we go to our Command Prompt “Start > All Programs > Accessories > Command Prompt” and type the following:
ruby --version
then hit enter. If no errors appears and the Ruby version displayed correctly as shown in the next image. Then you have successfully installed the Ruby Language on your Windows 7 System.

Installing Rails:

1. Now it’s time to install the Rails. Simply type in the following command in your command prompt to install Rails and all dependencies
gem install rails --include-dependencies
This will take a while depending on your internet connection. So you can set back and grab yourself a cup of coffee.

2. If everything went okay you should be able to see something link the previous image. at that point you have done so good. next step is to install our Database server.
3. now we need to install the required gems for rails and that can be made by running the following command in your command prompt:
bundle install
and now you are ready for the next step.

Installing Database Server:

I’d prefer to use MySQL as a database engine for my Rails applications. However you can feel free to use SqlLite3 which is by default the database engine associated with Rails.
1. Download the MySQL Community Server 5.1.50 select the recommended MSI Installer Essentials.
2. After downloading and running the installer make sure to choose complete on the first screen.

be sure to check on all windows warning before proceed.
3. After completing the installation wizard you will find a check box to start configuring your server

click on finish and let’s start customizing your MySQL server.
4. Follow the following screen:
a. Detailed Configurations

b. Developer Machine

c. Multifunctional Database

d. MySQL Datafiles

e. Decision Support (DSS)/OLAP

f. TCP/IP Networking Port Settings & Firewall Exception

g. UTF-8 Language Support “because we might write down stuff in arabic or in any other language than english and western languages”

h. Service Name

j. Security Settings

Hit next then execute and wait till all check points are green and voila, your MySQL server is ready… Next step is to test your installation and check if your computer is ready for the rails or not.

Testing your development environment:

1. Open a new Command Prompt window and navigate to the folder you want your projects to be created. I’ve created a new folder named it “Ruby Apps” and placed it in the root of my D: partition.
c: Users Hashem>D:
D:>md "Ruby Apps"
D:>cd "Ruby Apps"
D:Ruby Apps>
2. Now we will create a test application with the name of “my_app” and to do so we type the following command in the command prompt window
rails new my_app
Now a folder will be created including the complete folder and file structure for your new application.
3. Now it’s time to run the server and test the application we just created. Ruby installation comes with a build in web server called WEBrick. To run the server navigate to the newly created application and run the following command:
D:Ruby Apps>cd my_app
D:Ruby Appsmy_app>rails server
The WEBrick will communicate to your localhost via port 3000. so now head up to your browser and open
http://localhost:3000
If everything went ok you should be now looking at the Ruby on Rails: Welcome aboard default page.

Notes:

• The server will be closed if you terminate the command prompt window at any time. so be sure to leave that window open during the whole process when developing an application.
• To terminate the server manually press “Ctrl + C” or just hit the close button.

A sample Facebook application with CodeIgniter.

I was searching a Facebook application example with CodeIgniter today. There weren’t many tutorials on it so decided to give a try for FB application with CI. So let’s see what and how I did it.
I’m assuming you know how to setup a FB application. If you don’t then please visit here, this is a great step-by-step process to start a FB application.
Well, if you are done setting up the process according to the instruction, you supposed to have few things in your hand: an API key, Secret key, Callback URL and base URL.
Now you need to Download the latest version of CodeIgniter and unzip the folder in your Base URL location. Set base URL from application/config/config.php
Example : $config['base_url'] = “http://apps.facebook.com/your-app-name/”;
Ok, now set your default controller from here: application/config/routes.php
Default controller is “welcome” – for sample application I didn’t change it. I just worked on default controller. You can change it according to your needs. If you want to use different controller keeping default controller as it is then add that controller name to your Callback URL.
Now let’s download the Facebook client library from here:
Once you have this package in your hand place them in your application/plugins (if there is not folder named plugins then create it) folder. Note that, you can also add the library in the library folder.There are only three files of FB client library- place them in your plugins folder. But don’t forget to rename your facebook.php to facebook_pi.php
Yay ! We are done all initial setting stuffs. Now need to see some actions!
Open you default controller (in my case “Welcome” controller).
First of all we need to create a __Contrust class so that it gets initiated for the first time application user.
So our construct class will be look like this:

01	class Welcome extends Controller {

02	var $facebook;

03	//API and secret key that you got from your application setup.

04	var $__fbApiKey = 'YourKey';

05	var $__fbSecret = 'YourSecretKey';

06

07	function __construct()

08

{

09	parent::__construct();

10	//load the client library that we added as plugin in plugins folder.

11	$this->load->plugin('facebook');

12	// Prevent the 'Undefined index: facebook_config' notice from being thrown.

13	$GLOBALS['facebook_config']['debug'] = NULL;

14	// Create a Facebook client API object.

15	$this->facebook = new Facebook($this->__fbApiKey, $this->__fbSecret);

16	$user = $this->facebook->require_login();

17

}

18	function Welcome() {

19	parent::Controller();

20

}

21	// You should place your Controller's methods below.

22	function index()

23

{

24	// Retrieve the user's friends and pass them to the view.

25	$friends = $this->facebook->api_client->friends_get();

26	$this->load->view('welcome_message' , array("friends"=>$friends));

27

}

So we have called Facebook API key and secret key and then we loaded the client library that we added as plugin in plugins folder. At the end we checked if the user is logged in or not. Well, you can avoid it by defining a Session key. But I found it was easier to avoid Session key problem with the application by allowing users logged in first.
We supposed to get connected with FB API by this time. So let’s play with FB API now. Create a function called index () and lets retrieve logged in user’s all friends from it.
So it should look like this

1	function index()

2

{

3	// Retrieve the user's friends and pass them to the view.

4	$friends = $this->facebook->api_client->friends_get();

5	$this->load->view('welcome_message' , array("friends" , $friends));

6

}

So we got our friends list in “friends” array. Let’s go to “welcome_message” view in view folder to retrieve and show all friends that the array is containing. My view looks like this bellow.

01	<h3>Welcome to Sample Facebook application with CodeIgniter!</h3>

02	<div class="container">

03

< ?php

04	foreach ($friends as $id)

05

{

06

?>

07	<div class='img'>

08	<fb :profile-pic uid='<?=$id?>' firstnameonly = 'true' linked='true' size='square'/>

09	<div class='name'>

10	<fb :name uid='<?=$id?>' firstnameonly = 'true' capitalize='true'  useyou = 'false'/>

11	</fb></div>

12	</fb></div>

13

< ?php

14

}

15

?></div>

Two facebook tags are added here. One is for Profile picture of my friends and second tag is to show my friends name. I have also added three more CSS class to show it a little bit better.

They are:

01

.img {

02	float: left;

03	padding : 10px 0px 0px 10px;

04	width:50px;

05	overflow: visible;

06

}

07

08

.name {

09	padding-top: 0px;

10	text-align: center;

11

}

12

13	.container

14

{

15	padding-left:18px;

16

}

You can add this at the top of your view page in the <style> tag.
Now let’s go to the FB canvas and see what is my page is showing. From the above example my canvas page shows the output like this:
Okay, if you want to add database, you just need to configure your application/config/databse.php file. Rest of the things are same.
Ahh ! It’s cool. I guess if I use any FW for FB application first I will check the volume of the application. I think there is no meaning to use FW for a small FB application.

Adding New Shipping Module In Magento

You must have wondered how to add a new Shipping Module in Magento especially if you don’t find your preferred payment module in existing Magento installation with your preferred Shipping Module. Adding a new Magento Shipping Module in not difficult but requires little bit of programming at your end. In this article i am going to elaborate on how to add a new Shipping module to your existing Magento Installation.
Few Notes:

1. Just Replace all instances of ‘YourCompany’ with your company name.
2. Replace ‘NewModule’ with the Payment Module name.
3. Ensure that the path of the PHP include_path is /app/code/local/
4. Clean your cache after modifying the config xml files.

Now, you are all set to create a new shipping module of your own. Following is a step by step guide to build your own shipping module, just follow them in exact order and make sure that the above requirements are taken care of.

Set The Configuration

You need to create app/code/local/YourCompany/NewModule/etc/config.xml file and write the following lines of code in it.

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<?xml version="1.0"?> <config> <modules> <!-- declare module's version information --> <YourCompany_NewModule> <!-- this version number will be used for database upgrades --> <version>0.1.0</version> </YourCompany_NewModule> </modules>   <global> <!-- declare model group for new module --> <models> <!-- model group alias to be used in Mage::getModel() --> <newmodule> <!-- base class name for the model group --> <class>YourCompany_NewModule_Model</class> </newmodule> </models>   <!-- declare resource setup for new module --> <resources> <!-- resource identifier --> <newmodule_setup> <!-- specify that this resource is a setup resource and used for upgrades --> <setup> <!-- which module to look for install/upgrade files in --> <module>YourCompany_NewModule</module> </setup> <!-- specify database connection for this resource --> <connection> <!-- do not create new connection, use predefined core setup connection --> <use>core_setup</use> </connection> </newmodule_setup> </resources> </global> </config>

Now, edit app/etc/modules/YourCompany_NewModule.xml file

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<config> <!-- ... --> <modules> <!-- ... --> <!-- declare YourCompany_NewModule module --> <YourCompany_NewModule> <active>true</active> <codePool>local</codePool> </YourCompany_NewModule> <!-- ... --> </modules> <!-- ... --> </config>

Now, the Magento installation is aware that there is a new Module but nothing will happen as there is no Database selected for this.

Adding Information Into Adapter

Now, create app/code/local/YourCompany/NewModule/Model/Carrier/ShippingMethod.php file and put the following code in it. You can always set the ShippingMethod name of your choice, depending upon for which Payment Gateway you are making a module.

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<?php   /** * Our test shipping method module adapter */ class YourCompany_NewModule_Model_Carrier_ShippingMethod extends Mage_Shipping_Model_Carrier_Abstract { /** * unique internal shipping method identifier * * @var string [a-z0-9_] */ protected $_code = 'newmodule';   /** * Collect rates for this shipping method based on information in $request * * @param Mage_Shipping_Model_Rate_Request $data * @return Mage_Shipping_Model_Rate_Result */ public function collectRates(Mage_Shipping_Model_Rate_Request $request) { // skip if not enabled if (!Mage::getStoreConfig('carriers/'.$this->_code.'/active')) { return false; }   /** * here we are retrieving shipping rates from external service * or using internal logic to calculate the rate from $request * you can see an example in Mage_Usa_Model_Shipping_Carrier_Ups::setRequest() */   // get necessary configuration values $handling = Mage::getStoreConfig('carriers/'.$this->_code.'/handling');   // this object will be returned as result of this method // containing all the shipping rates of this method $result = Mage::getModel('shipping/rate_result');   // $response is an array that we have foreach ($response as $rMethod) { // create new instance of method rate $method = Mage::getModel('shipping/rate_result_method');   // record carrier information $method->setCarrier($this->_code); $method->setCarrierTitle(Mage::getStoreConfig('carriers/'.$this->_code.'/title'));   // record method information $method->setMethod($rMethod['code']); $method->setMethodTitle($rMethod['title']);   // rate cost is optional property to record how much it costs to vendor to ship $method->setCost($rMethod['amount']);   // in our example handling is fixed amount that is added to cost // to receive price the customer will pay for shipping method. // it could be as well percentage: /// $method->setPrice($rMethod['amount']*$handling/100); $method->setPrice($rMethod['amount']+$handling);   // add this rate to the result $result->append($method); }   return $result; } }

Soon after you have created a Model, just give admin an option to configure it and let checkout process made aware of this (it will show up in checkout process which your users can choose to pay).

How To Develop Admin Module For Shipping Customizations

Once, you are done with the above steps, you need to inform Magento that there is a new Payment Module which needs to be configured and displayed in admin. In order to do so, you need to create app/code/local/YourCompany/NewModule/etc/system.xml file and put the following lines of code in it.

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<?xml version="1.0"?> <config> <sections> <carriers> <groups> <newmodule translate="label" module="shipping"> <label>Carrier Name</label> <frontend_type>text</frontend_type> <sort_order>13</sort_order> <show_in_default>1</show_in_default> <show_in_website>1</show_in_website> <show_in_store>1</show_in_store> <fields> <account translate="label"> <label>Account number</label> <frontend_type>text</frontend_type> <sort_order>7</sort_order> <show_in_default>1</show_in_default> <show_in_website>1</show_in_website> <show_in_store>1</show_in_store> </account> <active translate="label"> <label>Enabled</label> <frontend_type>select</frontend_type> <source_model>adminhtml/system_config_source_yesno</source_model> <sort_order>1</sort_order> <show_in_default>1</show_in_default> <show_in_website>1</show_in_website> <show_in_store>1</show_in_store> </active> <contentdesc translate="label"> <label>Package Description</label> <frontend_type>text</frontend_type> <sort_order>12</sort_order> <show_in_default>1</show_in_default> <show_in_website>1</show_in_website> <show_in_store>1</show_in_store> </contentdesc> <!-- If the free_shipping_enable flag enable, the system will check free_shipping_subtotal to give free shipping otherwise will use shopping cart price rule behaviour --> <free_shipping_enable translate="label"> <label>Free shipping with minimum order amount</label> <frontend_type>select</frontend_type> <source_model>adminhtml/system_config_source_enabledisable</source_model> <sort_order>21</sort_order> <show_in_default>1</show_in_default> <show_in_website>1</show_in_website> <show_in_store>1</show_in_store> </free_shipping_enable> <free_shipping_subtotal translate="label"> <label>Minimum order amount for free shipping</label> <frontend_type>text</frontend_type> <sort_order>22</sort_order> <show_in_default>1</show_in_default> <show_in_website>1</show_in_website> <show_in_store>1</show_in_store> </free_shipping_subtotal> <dutiable translate="label"> <label>Shipment Dutiable</label> <frontend_type>select</frontend_type> <source_model>adminhtml/system_config_source_yesno</source_model> <sort_order>13</sort_order> <show_in_default>1</show_in_default> <show_in_website>1</show_in_website> <show_in_store>1</show_in_store> </dutiable> <gateway_url translate="label"> <label>Gateway URL</label> <frontend_type>text</frontend_type> <sort_order>2</sort_order> <show_in_default>1</show_in_default> <show_in_website>1</show_in_website> <show_in_store>1</show_in_store> </gateway_url> <handling_type translate="label"> <label>Calculate Handling Fee</label> <frontend_type>select</frontend_type> <source_model>shipping/source_handlingType</source_model> <sort_order>10</sort_order> <show_in_default>1</show_in_default> <show_in_website>1</show_in_website> <show_in_store>0</show_in_store> </handling_type> <handling_action translate="label"> <label>Handling Applied</label> <frontend_type>select</frontend_type> <source_model>shipping/source_handlingAction</source_model> <sort_order>11</sort_order> <show_in_default>1</show_in_default> <show_in_website>1</show_in_website> <show_in_store>0</show_in_store> </handling_action> <handling_fee translate="label"> <label>Handling fee</label> <frontend_type>text</frontend_type> <sort_order>12</sort_order> <show_in_default>1</show_in_default> <show_in_website>1</show_in_website> <show_in_store>1</show_in_store> </handling_fee> <max_package_weight translate="label"> <label>Maximum Package Weight (Please consult your shipping carrier for maximum supported shipping weight)</label> <frontend_type>text</frontend_type> <sort_order>13</sort_order> <show_in_default>1</show_in_default> <show_in_website>1</show_in_website> <show_in_store>1</show_in_store> </max_package_weight> <id translate="label"> <label>Access ID</label> <frontend_type>text</frontend_type> <backend_model>adminhtml/system_config_backend_encrypted</backend_model> <sort_order>5</sort_order> <show_in_default>1</show_in_default> <show_in_website>1</show_in_website> <show_in_store>1</show_in_store> </id> <password translate="label"> <label>Password</label> <frontend_type>text</frontend_type> <backend_model>adminhtml/system_config_backend_encrypted</backend_model> <sort_order>6</sort_order> <show_in_default>1</show_in_default> <show_in_website>1</show_in_website> <show_in_store>1</show_in_store> </password> <shipping_intlkey translate="label"> <label>Shipping key (International)</label> <frontend_type>text</frontend_type> <backend_model>adminhtml/system_config_backend_encrypted</backend_model> <sort_order>8</sort_order> <show_in_default>1</show_in_default> <show_in_website>1</show_in_website> <show_in_store>1</show_in_store> </shipping_intlkey> <shipping_key translate="label"> <label>Shipping key</label> <frontend_type>text</frontend_type> <backend_model>adminhtml/system_config_backend_encrypted</backend_model> <sort_order>8</sort_order> <show_in_default>1</show_in_default> <show_in_website>1</show_in_website> <show_in_store>1</show_in_store> </shipping_key> <sort_order translate="label"> <label>Sort order</label> <frontend_type>text</frontend_type> <sort_order>100</sort_order> <show_in_default>1</show_in_default> <show_in_website>1</show_in_website> <show_in_store>1</show_in_store> </sort_order> <title translate="label"> <label>Title</label> <frontend_type>text</frontend_type> <sort_order>2</sort_order> <show_in_default>1</show_in_default> <show_in_website>1</show_in_website> <show_in_store>1</show_in_store> </title> <sallowspecific translate="label"> <label>Ship to applicable countries</label> <frontend_type>select</frontend_type> <sort_order>90</sort_order> <frontend_class>shipping-applicable-country</frontend_class> <source_model>adminhtml/system_config_source_shipping_allspecificcountries</source_model> <show_in_default>1</show_in_default> <show_in_website>1</show_in_website> <show_in_store>1</show_in_store> </sallowspecific> <specificcountry translate="label"> <label>Ship to Specific countries</label> <frontend_type>multiselect</frontend_type> <sort_order>91</sort_order> <source_model>adminhtml/system_config_source_country</source_model> <show_in_default>1</show_in_default> <show_in_website>1</show_in_website> <show_in_store>1</show_in_store> </specificcountry> <showmethod translate="label"> <label>Show method if not applicable</label> <frontend_type>select</frontend_type> <sort_order>92</sort_order> <source_model>adminhtml/system_config_source_yesno</source_model> <show_in_default>1</show_in_default> <show_in_website>1</show_in_website> <show_in_store>1</show_in_store> </showmethod> <specificerrmsg translate="label"> <label>Displayed Error Message</label> <frontend_type>textarea</frontend_type> <sort_order>80</sort_order> <show_in_default>1</show_in_default> <show_in_website>1</show_in_website> <show_in_store>1</show_in_store> </specificerrmsg> </fields> </newmodule> </groups> </carriers> </sections> </config>

Once this file is saved you will find your new Payment Module under System> Configuration > Shipping Methods. It’s now up to you to add your custom fields in the fields tag, and subsequently make your configuration do something constructive.
Please leave me a comment and let me know if you run into any problems implementing the above code.