A Developer's Journey https://www.blocknot.es/ In this blog post, I propose a sample project to set up end-to-end tests with the following form: an Alpine.js client to fetch data from the server; a Rails server to provide an API; a Cypress project to host the E2E tests. The main features are: data tests setup using... Wed, 02 Feb 2022 00:00:00 +0100 https://www.blocknot.es/2022-02-02-cypress-tests-with-rails/ https://www.blocknot.es/2022-02-02-cypress-tests-with-rails/ Sometimes the number of factories of a project grows fast and keeping them tidy can be tricky. Old versions, outdated factories, and inefficient ones can slow down the CI quite a lot. Here are some notes that I took to keep them in a good shape. I’m using RSpec with... Fri, 05 Nov 2021 00:00:00 +0100 https://www.blocknot.es/2021-11-05-ruby-improving-the-test-factories/ https://www.blocknot.es/2021-11-05-ruby-improving-the-test-factories/ A common way to generate PDF from HTML with Ruby is using wicked_pdf or pdfkit gems, but they rely on an external executable and it’s slow compared to native methods. So creating PDF documents is often delegated to background jobs. To offer an alternative, years ago I started to work... Fri, 20 Aug 2021 00:00:00 +0200 https://www.blocknot.es/2021-08-20-rails-generate-pdf-from-html/ https://www.blocknot.es/2021-08-20-rails-generate-pdf-from-html/ Recently I made some experiments to setup a Rails 6 dev environment using Docker. I started from the Docker’s quick start. Dockerfile I install some extra packages like chromium-chromedriver for feature specs. # Base image FROM ruby:2.7.2-alpine # Install required packages and tools RUN apk add --no-cache --update build-base chromium... Sat, 06 Feb 2021 00:00:00 +0100 https://www.blocknot.es/2021-02-06-docker-rails-6-dev-environment/ https://www.blocknot.es/2021-02-06-docker-rails-6-dev-environment/ Recently I made some experiments to setup a Rails 6 dev environment using Vagrant. I started from rails/rails-dev-box and applied some changes. VM Setup These are the features of the Vagrant file that I’m using: Ubuntu 18.04 LTS box; ability to install different ruby versions; project files (placed in ./project)... Tue, 05 Jan 2021 00:00:00 +0100 https://www.blocknot.es/2021-01-05-vagrant-rails-6-dev-environment/ https://www.blocknot.es/2021-01-05-vagrant-rails-6-dev-environment/ In the last days I prepared a theme for Administrate (a tool to create admin dashboards) using Materialize framework. The main features of my component are: uses only CSS (and very few JS), no structural changes are required; it’s responsive and tested on mobile browsers; allows to use Materialize styles/grid/widgets... Tue, 01 Sep 2020 00:00:00 +0200 https://www.blocknot.es/2020-09-01-administrate-materialize-theme/ https://www.blocknot.es/2020-09-01-administrate-materialize-theme/ Recently I made some experiments with Telegram bots in Ruby. From Telegram Bots API, there are 2 methods to receive incoming updates: getUpdates: using long polling; setWebhook: setting an URL that will receive the requests. Creating a bot with the first method is easily done using a Telegram client library... Sat, 02 May 2020 00:00:00 +0200 https://www.blocknot.es/2020-05-02-telegram-bot-server-in-ruby/ https://www.blocknot.es/2020-05-02-telegram-bot-server-in-ruby/ Have you ever wondered what tests cover a specific part of a project? Occasionally it could be useful to discover how is tested/executed/documented (in the way of tests as Living Documentation) a line (or set of lines) of an application. For example, when you create a part that stands over... Fri, 21 Feb 2020 00:00:00 +0100 https://www.blocknot.es/2020-02-21-reverse-coverage/ https://www.blocknot.es/2020-02-21-reverse-coverage/ Recently I have spent some time doing experiments with Opal rb 1.0, to use Ruby in place of Javascript. Here are some tests that could be useful. Require other sources There are 3 methods to include other sources: require, require_relative and require_tree. Also autoload can be used to include. Let’s... Sun, 10 Nov 2019 00:00:00 +0100 https://www.blocknot.es/2019-11-10-first-steps-with-opal/ https://www.blocknot.es/2019-11-10-first-steps-with-opal/ Writing effective tests is tricky. When working with Ruby on Rails, a good starting book about this matter is “Testing Rails”, published by Thoughtbot. In this article, I will offer some interesting points that I found in it. Main concepts highlighted by the book What are the characteristics of an... Fri, 02 Aug 2019 00:00:00 +0200 https://www.blocknot.es/2019-08-02-testing-rails-book-review/ https://www.blocknot.es/2019-08-02-testing-rails-book-review/ Have you ever found the Rails logs too verbose in development? When working on a Rails application, you don’t always need that amount of detail in your logs. From time to time, a less verbose log is more than enough, especially after a long day coding. To change the log... Wed, 12 Jun 2019 00:00:00 +0200 https://www.blocknot.es/2019-06-12-rails-middleware-to-change-log-level/ https://www.blocknot.es/2019-06-12-rails-middleware-to-change-log-level/ Good News, Everyone! In the last months I published some plugins for Active Admin, the administration framework for Ruby on Rails applications. Activeadmin Simple Form To use Simple Form in place of Formtastic in edit views (BETA): https://github.com/blocknotes/activeadmin_simple_form Activeadmin Active Resource To use a REST API in place of a... Sun, 02 Sep 2018 00:00:00 +0200 https://www.blocknot.es/2018-09-02-active-admin-plugins/ https://www.blocknot.es/2018-09-02-active-admin-plugins/ Good News, Everyone! I have just published some new projects using Grape, an opinionated framework for creating REST-like APIs in Ruby. Grape Starter Kit A boiler-plate / template for new grap projects using a structure similar to Rails: https://github.com/blocknotes/grape-starter-kit Grape by Examples Some common web tasks using Grape: cache, auth,... Wed, 25 Apr 2018 00:00:00 +0200 https://www.blocknot.es/2018-04-25-grape-projects/ https://www.blocknot.es/2018-04-25-grape-projects/ Good News, Everyone! Some days ago I needed to use a mock server to test a feature I was working on. There are a lot of similar projects online but none of them allowed me to inspect the request easily. So I decided to create mine, a tool where it’s... Mon, 02 Apr 2018 00:00:00 +0200 https://www.blocknot.es/2018-04-02-ruby-http-mock-server/ https://www.blocknot.es/2018-04-02-ruby-http-mock-server/ Good News, Everyone! In the last months I published some Rails components. Carrierwave Tests Some tests using Carrierwave and MiniMagick / RMagick / Vips: https://github.com/blocknotes/carrierwave-tests Contents Core A structure to manage contents in a flexible way: blocks with recursive nested blocks + items as “leaves”: https://github.com/blocknotes/contents_core Json Virtual Fields Some... Sat, 11 Nov 2017 00:00:00 +0100 https://www.blocknot.es/2017-11-11-rails-components/ https://www.blocknot.es/2017-11-11-rails-components/ Good News, Everyone! Here are some new Ruby projects that I prepared recently. Auto Seeding A component to auto generate seed data with ActiveRecord using a set of predefined or custom rules respecting models validations: https://github.com/blocknotes/auto-seeding Prawn Styled Text A Prawn PDF component which adds basic HTML support: https://github.com/blocknotes/prawn-styled-text Ruby... Sat, 02 Sep 2017 00:00:00 +0200 https://www.blocknot.es/2017-09-02-some-new-ruby-projects/ https://www.blocknot.es/2017-09-02-some-new-ruby-projects/ Good News, Everyone! In the last months I published some plugins for RailsAdmin, a Rails engine that provides an easy-to-use interface for managing your data. RailsAdmin Extended Fields To add more options to fields (css classes from models, nested sortable tabs, nested components): https://github.com/blocknotes/rails_admin_extended_fields RailsAdmin Live Edit To edit site... Sat, 01 Jul 2017 00:00:00 +0200 https://www.blocknot.es/2017-07-01-rails-admin-plugins/ https://www.blocknot.es/2017-07-01-rails-admin-plugins/ Good News, Everyone! I have just published some new projects using Crystal lang. Manual Generator A tool to generate PDF manuals from HTML documentation sites: https://github.com/blocknotes/manual-generator Kemal Rest API A library to create REST API with Kemal: https://github.com/blocknotes/kemal-rest-api curl-crystal Porting for libcurl, the multiprotocol file transfer library: https://github.com/blocknotes/curl-crystal gumbo-crystal Porting... Tue, 18 Apr 2017 00:00:00 +0200 https://www.blocknot.es/2017-04-18-crystal-projects/ https://www.blocknot.es/2017-04-18-crystal-projects/ It’s time to change website structure: Jekyll! I was curious about static sites generators and Jekyll seems a quite nice piece of software :) With beautiful-jekyll theme. Sun, 26 Feb 2017 00:00:00 +0100 https://www.blocknot.es/2017-02-26-site-restyle-with-jekyll/ https://www.blocknot.es/2017-02-26-site-restyle-with-jekyll/ Good News, Everyone! I created more Crystal shards: https://github.com/blocknotes/kemal-rest-api A Kemal REST API library. Sun, 15 Jan 2017 00:00:00 +0100 https://www.blocknot.es/2017-01-15-kemal-rest-api/ https://www.blocknot.es/2017-01-15-kemal-rest-api/