Nathan Colgate RSS

This is the personal blog of Nathan Colgate Clark. I work at Brand New Box. I developed a content management system for churches.

Archive

Jan
8th
Fri
permalink

How to Rename a File on S3 with right_aws and Keep Permissions

Because this took way too much time to figure out:

s3=RightAws::S3Interface.new(S3SwfUpload::S3Config.access_key_id, S3SwfUpload::S3Config.secret_access_key)
old_name = "tmp/#{self.video_file_name}"
new_name = original_video_file_path
bucket = S3SwfUpload::S3Config.bucket
(1..5).each do |try|
  begin
    acl_prop = s3.get_acl(bucket, old_name)
    s3.rename(bucket, old_name, new_name)
    s3.put_acl(bucket, new_name, acl_prop[:object])
    break
  rescue Exception => e
    self.video_log += "Problem renaming file, trying again... #{e}\n"
    sleep 1
  end
end
Oct
2nd
Fri
permalink
Sep
10th
Thu
permalink

Dealing with Exception Notifier and Rails 2.3.3

I installed Exception Notifier on one of our Apps running Rails 2.3.3 and kept running into this error:

Net::SMTPFatalError (555 5.5.2 Syntax error..

A little bit of insight provided this heads up:

But as of Rails 2.3.3, the from email address will get the angle brackets added, so it can only contain the address.

Rails 2.3.4 is/was supposed to fix that, and includes tests so it will be ensured in future versions.

A quick look at the Exception Notifier README and I tried this:

ExceptionNotifier.sender_address = %("app.error@myapp.com)

Success!

permalink

Adding Email and User Verification to AuthLogic

The Session

class UserSession < Authlogic::Session::Base

validate :check_if_verified



private



def check_if_verified

errors.add(:base, "You have not yet verified your account") unless attempted_record && attempted_record.verified

end

end

The Migration

class AddVerifiedToUser < ActiveRecord::Migration

def self.up

add_column :users, :verified, :boolean, :default => false

end



def self.down

remove_column :users, :verified

end

end

The User Controller

class UsersController < ApplicationController



...



def create

@user = User.new(params[:user])

if @user.save

flash[:notice] = "Thanks for signing up, we've delivered an email to you with instructions on how to complete your registration!"

@user.deliver_verification_instructions!

redirect_to root_url

else

render :action => :new

end

end

end

The Verification Controller

class UserVerificationsController < ApplicationController



before_filter :load_user_using_perishable_token



def show

if @user

@user.verify!

flash[:notice] = "Thank you for verifying your account. You may now login."

end

redirect_to root_url

end



private



def load_user_using_perishable_token

@user = User.find_using_perishable_token(params[:id])

flash[:notice] = "Unable to find your account." unless @user

end



end

The User Model

class User < ActiveRecord::Base

acts_as_authentic



def deliver_password_reset_instructions!

reset_perishable_token!

Notifier.deliver_password_reset_instructions(self)

end



def verify!

self.verified = true

self.save

end

The Mailer

class Notifier < ApplicationMailer

default_url_options[:host] = "www.myurl.org"



def verification_instructions(user)

subject "Email Verification"

from "myurl"

recipients user.email

sent_on Time.now

body :verification_url => user_verification_url(user.perishable_token)

end

end

The Mailer View

Thank you for signing up for this site. Please click the following link to verify your email address:

<%= @verification_url %>

If the above URL does not work, try copying and pasting it into your browser. If you continue to have problems, please feel free to contact us.

Sep
2nd
Wed
permalink
Aug
20th
Thu
permalink

Custom Generators That Work in all of your Rails Apps

Go here:

/Library/Ruby/Gems/1.8/gems/rails-X.X.X/lib/rails_generator/generators/components/

Aug
19th
Wed
permalink

Trouble with Deprec Setting up Apache and Passenger

I was getting this error a lot:

VirtualHost *:80 — mixing * ports and non-* ports with a NameVirtualHost address is not supported, proceeding with undefined results

The fix:

I had to remove the default site:

cd /etc/apache2/sites-enabled/

sudo rm 000-default

The file is still available here:

/etc/apache2/sites-available/

But is not conflicting with the config files that deprec sets up.

Apr
23rd
Thu
permalink

Update to YUI Editor Code View Problem

I over complicated things in my previous solution, and found a better solution while trying to get the WYSIWYG editor to work inside an AJAX form using rails’ remote_form_for.

Using the YUI editor example, set handleSubmit to false and add this right after the MyEditor.render();

// Nate's better Handle Submit
function myHandleFormSubmit(e){ 
  if(state == 'off') {
    myEditor.cleanHTML();
  };
};	
Event.on(myEditor.get('element').form, 'submit', myHandleFormSubmit, myEditor, true);

When doing this and using a AJAX form, try this:

// Nate's better Handle Submit (AJAX version)
function myHandleFormSubmit(e){ 
  if(state == 'off') {
    myEditor.cleanHTML();
  };
  Connect.setForm(e.target);
  Connect.asyncRequest('POST', e.target.action, callback, '_method=put'); 
  Event.stopEvent(e);
};	
var handleSuccess = function(o){ eval(o.responseText); };
var callback = { success:handleSuccess };
Event.on(myEditor.get('element').form, 'submit', myHandleFormSubmit, myEditor, true);

Hope this helps

Apr
17th
Fri
permalink

Trying to use the YUI WYSIWYG RTE as a code editor

Our CityGates app uses the YUI WYSIWYG Rich Text Editor to for all large text areas.  Unfortunately, it does not have code / source editing support out of the box.  To implement it, you must use some custom code to toggle the textarea / WYSIWYG visibility.

The example from YUI does not use handleSubmit. This means that when a user submits the form from the WYSIWYG editor the textarea does not get updated with the modified information from the iframe when the form is submitted. The user must toggle to the code view to trigger the update to the textarea. Result: a broken WYSIWYG editor.

See example.

The obvious solution: set handleSubmit to “true”. But this causes the converse bad behavior to kick in: When submitting from the code view, the textarea is updated with outdated information from the iframe before the form is submitted. The user must toggle to the WYSIWYG view to update the WYSIWYG. Result: a broken code editor.

See example.

This is what we had setup, and our users were starting to notice.

So a couple of weeks ago I spent some time trying to figure out what was going on, and figured out a crude way to toggle between the handleSubmit behaviors when the user toggles between the views. It isn’t very pretty, but it works.

See solution.

I’m looking forward to when this gets integrated into the final RTE.

Side Note on Our Choice of Editor

We chose to use the YUI RTE because of it’s ability to integrate into any backend system and support image upload and inserting.  We love using TinyMCE and their slick uploader on PHP projects, but CityGates is Ruby on Rails.

Updated April 23, 2009

Apr
16th
Thu
permalink

jQuery Cycle Different Effects for Previous and Next

jQuery Cycle plugin is fantastic.  However, there is a little bit of inconsistantcy when using it as a left/right slideshow.  You click the next arrow, it goes right. You click the previous arrow, it goes left right.  The following code allows you to have different effects based on previous/ next button clicks.

Demo

jQuery(document).ready(function(){




		$('#blink_headlines').cycle({ 

	    fx:      	'scrollBothWays',

			next:   	'#cycle_next_blue',

			prev: 		'#cycle_prev_blue',

	    speed:  	1000,

	    timeout: 	0,

			pause:   	1,

			easeIn:   'easeOutBack',

			easeOut:  'easeOutBack'

		});

});





$.fn.cycle.transitions.scrollBothWays = function($cont, $slides, opts) {

	$cont.css('overflow','hidden');

	opts.before.push($.fn.cycle.commonReset);



	// custom transition fn (trying to get it to scroll forward and backward)

	opts.fxFn = function(curr, next, opts, cb, fwd) {

		

		var w = $cont.width();

		opts.cssFirst = { left: 0 };

		opts.animIn	  = { left: 0 };

		

		if(fwd){

			opts.cssBefore= { left: w, top: 0 };

			opts.animOut  = { left: 0-w };

		}else{

			opts.cssBefore= { left: -w, top: 0 };

			opts.animOut  = { left: w };

		};

		

		var $l = $(curr), $n = $(next);

		var speedIn = opts.speedIn, speedOut = opts.speedOut, easeIn = opts.easeIn, easeOut = opts.easeOut, animOut = opts.animOut, animIn = opts.animIn;

		$n.css(opts.cssBefore);

		var fn = function() {$n.show();$n.animate(animIn, speedIn, easeIn, cb);};

		$l.animate(animOut, speedOut, easeOut, function() {

			if (opts.cssAfter) $l.css(opts.cssAfter);

			if (!opts.sync) fn();

		});

		if (opts.sync) fn();

	};

};