Buttons

NOTE: This is a very early version of Buttons. Expect it to change rapidly.

Buttons is a Rack framework for working with JavaScript-heavy applications. It automatically creates Ajax endpoints for Ruby methods, and creates a set of JavaScript functions to access those endpoints.

Example

Here’s an example. The Ruby class below will automatically generate the JavaScript found beneath it. For now, we only generate code that relies on jQuery, but that’s planned to change.

Ruby code:

class ProfileButton < Buttons::Button
  get :show
  post :login

  def login(username, password)
    # The variable's set just to show that it's being returned.      
    token = generate_login_token(username, password)
    token
  end

  def show(profile_id)
    Profile.find(profile_id)
  end
end

JavaScript code (found at /profile.js):

(function () {
  this.Profile = {};

  Profile.login = function (username, password, _ajaxOptions) {
    var data = { 'username': username, 'password': password };
    if (_ajaxOptions === undefined || typeof(_ajaxOptions) != "object") {
      _ajaxOptions = {};
    }
    _ajaxOptions['type'] = "POST";
    _ajaxOptions['url'] = "/profile/login";
    _ajaxOptions['data'] = data;

    if (_ajaxOptions['dataType'] === 'undefined') {
      _ajaxOptions['dataType'] = 'json';
    }

    return jQuery.ajax(_ajaxOptions);
  };

  Profile.show = function (profileId, _ajaxOptions) {
    var data = { 'profile_id': profileId };
    if (_ajaxOptions === undefined || typeof(_ajaxOptions) != "object") {
      _ajaxOptions = {};
    }
    _ajaxOptions['type'] = "GET";
    _ajaxOptions['url'] = "/profile/show";
    _ajaxOptions['data'] = data;

    if (_ajaxOptions['dataType'] === 'undefined') {
      _ajaxOptions['dataType'] = 'json';
    }

    return jQuery.ajax(_ajaxOptions);
  };
})();

How to use this

Run buttons <directory> to create a new Buttons application in that directory. There’s not any helpers or generators yet, but you can look at the generated application to figure it out for now.