DKP/Crafting Manager (gManager)

[RageKage]

No, I'm not trying to rip off Google, I just don't have a good name for the tool.

What I've embarked on is a improved DKP system, that'll include Scheduling (with Calendar, and XML/RSS export) and a resurrected version of the Crafting Manager that I announced but never finished. So now I'm looking for contributors, and new coder blood, and some new brains - mine is running out.

Thing is it's written in Ruby on Rails (RoR) - For the better part of a year I've been working with this framework, and it honestly makes web development a lot more fun. You can read about it here http://www.rubyonrails.com But for our purposes in this post, I'm going to talk you through getting a Web Development environment in Windows.

So to get started working on the new system you need a Ruby On Rails dev Environment - I'll start with windows since it's actually easier than OSX or even linux (which I'll include later).

For Windows this is by far the simpliest way I can explain to install RoR.

1. Download this http://rubyforge.org/frs/download.ph...ruby185-21.exe This is the Ruby one click installer, it's a simple natively compiled version of Ruby. Make sure you choose to update the path variable (if asked) and install RubyGems. RubyGems is a package mangaement facility for Ruby libraries (one of which is RoR)
2. Open a Command prompt (aka Dos Prompt)
3. type in ruby -v, you should see something like "ruby 1.8.5 (2006-08-25) [i386-mswin32]" returned. This is good.
4. Next, type in "gem install rails --include-dependencies". This will install RoR, hurray. Should see messages like installing ActiveRecord, and installing RDoc.. all normal. Once it's completed type in "rails" you should see a help message, this is also good.
5. After that is finished you need to install Rake, Rake is Ruby's version of Make, I won't go into what Make is, basically it's just a launcher for various scripts and tasks. Install this by issueing "gem install rake" from the Command Prompt.
6. Next, install Mongrel - Mongrel is a web service written in Ruby - Personally I like it better than Webrick (the default webservice) so if you want you can skip this step. However if you want to install it, issue this command at the command prompt "gem install mongrel --include-dependencies"
7. You'll also need MySQL, the DKP is written to use MySQL. You can find the install for MySQL here http://dev.mysql.com/downloads/mysql/5.0.html#downloads, instructions on installation are here: http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/...tallation.html
8. Once MySQL is installed, go back to the Command Prompt and install the Ruby MySQL bindings, issue the command "gem install mysql" - you'll be prompted with multiple versions, select the most recent version with the (mswin32) tag.
9. Obtaining RadRails Ruby IDE is probably the best way to create and manage projects for Rails in Windows. It's a personal favourite on the Windows Platform (due to NOT havign TextMate which I'm much more fond of but it's OSX only) You can download RadRails here, http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/r...2.zip?download. As a side note, you'll need Java installed. Ironic I know - but it's an IDE.....

Once RadRails is extracted you can start it and hopefully you get the GUI. You'll need to configure it with the paths to ruby, rails and rake. From the task bar select Window->Preferences - within preferences select Rails->Configuration Enter in the path to where rails, rake and mongrel_rails installed (typically in C:\ruby\bin)

Checkout DKP code:
Getting the actual codebase isn't very hard, I check in all the code to an SVN repository.

First a few things to get the environment setup, open up the command prompt again and issue the following command:

"mysqladmin -u root -p create gmanager_development"

use the password for the root account for the mysql server - usually you define it during the installation.

Leave the command prompt open and return to RadRails. From RadRails create a new project File->New - expand the SVN section and click on checkout project from SVN, click Next. Select "Create new repository location" radio button and click next. type in teh following URL "http://pistonz.net/svn/gmanager" click next. You shoudl see 'trunk' in the next window, click the + to expand it, you should see many directories like (app, config, log, public) this is good. Click on 'trunk' and click next. Select "check out project using new project wizard" checkbox and click Finish.

New wizard pops up, click on Rails Project and click next. Give the project a Name like "OOC gManager" or just "gmanager". Use the default location. Uncheck generate rails application skeleton, and if you installed Mongrel check off "Create a Mongrel Server" and uncheck "Create a Webrick server", if you didn't install Mongrel, leave the settings as they are and click Finish. Remember to make note of the location.

RadRails should start to checkout the code.

Once the code is checked out, you can start to configure the environment.

From the Rails Navigator expand the project, and inside the config directory there should be a database.yml.example file, copy that file as database.yml.

Edit database.yml file and examine the development: area, and make changes where necessary. specifically username, and password. This for development is usually root and the password given during mysql installation.

I'm not going to go into the whole securing your mysql installation, because frankly this is a toy app.

Once all this is done, go back to the command prompt and change directories to where RadRails checked out the application.

run this command "rake db:bootstrap" and follow up with "rake db:bootstrap:load" should load default fixtures and settings, including the database schema. If you have problems, review the above steps for creating the database.

Once this is finished, go back to RadRails - click on the servers tab at the bottom, and select the Mongrel/Webrick server and click the start button.

Everything hopefully will start and you can from yoru browser goto http://localhost:3000/ and see the Rails welcome page.

[Zymun]

Great instructions, Rager; have been looking for an excuse to learn Rails -- and despite the somewhat mixed message of needing Java for Rails development, it's hard to argue with Eclipse, definitely my favorite IDE for non-C++ development. :)

Couple of things:

- the link to the RadRails ZIP doesn't work (or didn't for me), but a simple search on Sourceforge is all that's required to get it.

- you don't say it, but you need the MySQL 'bin' folder in your PATH in order to avoid an ass-ton of "LIBMYSQL.dll" not found Windows errors whilst building (or perhaps "raking" is the more apropos gerund ;-)) the bootstrap environment.

[RageKage]

hrm.. weird - i've never had a problem with libmysql being an issue..

But, the instructions worked? :)

[Zymun]

Yep, have the whole thing up and building. Just need to learn Ruby now so I can actually understand what goes where (beyond the basic MVC model, which is obvious) and perhaps start contributing, depending on time available :)

[Dirk]

Ill get this installed tonight and start learning....

[Neit]

I had the code before but didn't know how to setup the database. Maybe now I'll actually do something :)

[RageKage]

The code you had i think is old and busted, new hawtness is the gmanager stuff :)

[mystalia]

Installed and running. Now like Zy I just need to figure out what all is going on :)

On a side-note, I also installed MySql GUI Tools in order to more easily see the db. (There might have been an easier way to view everything but I'm used to SQL Server).

http://dev.mysql.com/downloads/gui-tools/5.0.html

[Zymun]

SQLYog, baby. It's the only way to fly (and now it's OSS too ;-)).

[stark]

10 PRINT "LETS RAID MOLTEN CORE";
20 PRINT "NO LETS RAID TEH FRIDGE";
30 GOTO 10
40 END

[Wolf]

What exactly are you after here Rage? What parts of the system do you need coded. What parts are already complete/partially complete. What parts do you want to do yourself. What type of GUI do you want, what functionality ect..

I have been using rails for a while now and would love to help out and learn at the same time, just need to know exactly what you need.

[Wolf]

stark

10 PRINT "LETS RAID MOLTEN CORE";
20 PRINT "NO LETS RAID TEH FRIDGE";
30 GOTO 10
40 END

Psst, never gonna get to 40 :P

[RageKage]

Aha, well - not sure yet :)

It's basically a rewrite - I'm handling the DKP code at the moment, but someone handling the crafting code would be helpful, or even adding a module for profiles :) (you get to work with vedge on that one:) It's very early at this point - and if people would like they can peruse the running DKP code here.

http://pistonz.net/projects/chaosDKP

[Geometrix]

RageKage

(you get to work with vedge on that one:)

And people wonder why I never got anything done with it ... ;)

[TheVedge]

Geometrix

And people wonder why I never got anything done with it ... ;)

Want me to go ahead and put up the diffs of what I did vs what you did? :P