cuba-contrib

Cuba is probably one of the tiniest rack-based micro frameworks around. Weighing in at only 138 LOC, it has proven itself to be a very resilient tool in various web application domains. Check the list of sites built using Cuba in order to grasp the endless possibilities.

STEP 1: Cuba::Prelude

Cuba does one thing, and it does it well. Cuba-contrib, on the other hand, layers requirement-specific functionality on top of it. This allows us to build simpler and lighter solutions.

To get started with Cuba::Contrib, install it using RubyGems:

“ash $ gem install cuba # if you haven’t already done so $ gem install cuba-contrib

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For the remainder of the examples below, we’ll assume you always put your main cuba application in app.rb and your views in views.

“ash $ touch app.rb $ mkdir views

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Now you can require it in your application

“uby require “cuba” require “cuba/contrib”

Cuba.plugin Cuba::Prelude

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Cuba::Prelude adds the basic stuff you’ll need:

“uby Cuba.define do on “about” do # same as encodeURIComponent in javascript land res.write urlencode(“http://www.google.com”)

# basically an alias for Rack::Utils.escape_html
res.write h("Cuba & Cuba Contrib")

end end

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STEP 2: Choose your templating

Here comes a new challenger: Mote

We prefer to use our home-grown templating engine called Mote. We do that by simply loading the plugin Cuba::Mote:

“uby require “cuba” require “cuba/contrib” require “mote”

Cuba.plugin Cuba::Mote

Cuba.define do on “home” do res.write view(“home”) end

on “about” do res.write partial(“about”) end

# Or you can use render as a shortcut to res.write view(...). on “contact” do render(“contact”) end end

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This assumes that you have a views folder, containing a home.mote and an about.mote. Your layout defaults to layout.mote.

Classic templating needs

Note: as of Cuba 3.0, the plugin architecture of cuba-contrib has been merged into the core codebase. The following example should work with Cuba 3.0 without even requiring cuba-contrib.

“uby require “cuba” require “cuba/render”

Cuba.plugin Cuba::Render Cuba.settings[:render][:template_engine] = “haml”

Cuba.define do on “home” do res.write view(“home”) # renders views/home.haml end

on “about” do res.write partial(“about”) # renders views/about.haml end end

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STEP 3: Make your own plugins

Authoring your own plugins is pretty straightforward.

“uby require “bluecloth”

module MyOwnHelper def markdown(str) Markdown.new(str).to_html end end

Cuba.plugin MyOwnHelper

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that’s the simplest kind of plugin you’ll write. In fact, that’s exactly how the markdown helper is written in Cuba::TextHelpers.

A more complicated plugin for example, will make use of Cuba.settings to provide default values:

“uby module MarkdownView def self.setup(app) app.settings[:markdown_view] ||= {} app.settings[:markdown_view][:views] = “markdown” end

def markdown_view(template) data = File.read(“#settings[:markdown_view][:views]/#template.markdown”)

res.write Markdown.new(data).to_html

end end

Cuba.plugin MarkdownView

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