OpenLaszlo Rails Plugin

The OpenLaszlo Rails plugin makes it easy to use OpenLaszlo client-side applications with Rails. It includes a generator and helper for creating OpenLaszlo applications and displaying them within Rails views.

For example, the following shell command will create a Rails model named Contact, a REST controller named ContactController, an OpenLaszlo application named applet, and a view named contact/applet. At this point the applet will automatically display records that it retrieves, via the controller, from the model.

  > ./script/generate applet contact applet

Generators

The plugin defines the following generator, that can be used to quickly create an OpenLaszlo stub application and a view that displays it. Use the —help option with a generator for more information.

  ./script/generate applet # generates an OpenLaszlo source file, and a view to hold it

Rails Tasks

The plugin defines the following tasks:

  rake openlaszlo:build:applets
    Recompile any applets in the app/applets directory

  rake openlaszlo:clobber:applets
    Clean the applets directory

  rake openlaszlo:install:javascripts
    Copies the OpenLaszlo javascripts to public/javascripts

Requirements

Rails 2.0 or later. (Might work with earlier versions, but is untested with them.)
OpenLaszlo 3.1 or later
The OpenLaszlo ruby gem

Installation

0: Install OpenLaszlo, Ruby, and Ruby on Rails.

1: Install the ROpenLaszlo gem:

  > gem install ropenlaszlo

2: Install this plugin. In your rails application directory:

  > ./script/plugin install svn://rubyforge.org/var/svn/laszlo-plugin/tags/openlaszlo

3: Set your OPENLASZLO_HOME environment variable to the directory that contains the OpenLaszlo SDK. If the following prints anything, you‘ve got it right:

  > grep Laszlo "$OPENLASZLO_HOME/README.txt"

4: Set your OPENLASZLO_URL environment variable to the web location of the OpenLaszlo server; for example, http://localhost:8080/lps-3.1.1. This step is optional in other platforms (although it makes compilation faster), but is mandatory on Windows.

Usage

In your RAILS application directory:

1: Create an applet, and a view that displays it:

  > ./script/generate applet contacts applet

2: Compile the applet:

  > rake applets

Now launch the server (script/server), and you can view your applet at http:127.0.0.1:3000/contacts/applet.

Resources

Credits

Oliver Steele — Ruby code
Max Carlson — Ruby code

FlashObject is by Geoff Stearns.