The Life of a Radar

Helpa Usage
27 Dec 2010

If you'd like to test out these commands, please do so in the #logga channel, not #rubyonrails.

These are some of the hard-coded commands in helpa. These are in no particular order. Others have been omitted because they serve little to no purpose:

!google [query] or !g [query]: Outputs a link to a google with the search term specified. !gg [query]: Outputs a link to letmegooglethatforyou.com with the search term specified. !railscast [query]: Outputs a link to railscast.com searching for railscasts for the search term specified. !githubs [query]: Outputs a link to the search page for Github for the search term specified. !github [user] [repository] [branch] [path]: Outputs a link to a specified page on github

The rest don't take any arguments:

  • !finders - http://guides.rubyonrails.org/active_record_querying.html - ActiveRecord Querying Guide by Ryan Bigg
  • !routing - http://guides.rubyonrails.org/routing.html - Rails Routing From the Outside In - Rails Guide - by Mike Gunderloy
  • !associations - http://guides.rubyonrails.org/association_basics.html - Active Record Association Basics by Mike Gunderloy
  • !rails-view-lookup - http://stuff.lilleaas.net/how_rails_selects_which_view_to_render - Which conditions Rails uses in order to determine which view file to render when controller actions are invoked.
  • !routing-overview - http://frozenplague.net?p=108 - An introductory guide to RESTful Routing.
  • !guides - http://guides.rubyonrails.org/ - Ruby on Rails guides, part of the ongoing hackfest
  • !pastie - http://pastie.org - Paste code examples there, and post the URL of the pastie here when you're done. http://pastie.org/help/ for more info on usage.
  • !botsnack - Nom nom. Thanks, {nick}!
  • !peepcode - http://peepcode.com - Awesome screencasts of very high quality and relevance. The $9 is totally worth it.
  • !railscasts - http://railscasts.com - Great free screencasts by Ryan Bates. Tips, tricks and best practices.
  • !lighthouse - http://lighthouseapp.com - beautiful simple issue tracking
  • !fatmodel - http://weblog.jamisbuck.org/2006/10/18/skinny-controller-fat-model - Place the logic where it's supposed to be placed
  • !rails-lighthouse - http://rails.lighthouseapp.com - Rails issue tracking
  • !wwrd - What would Radar do?
  • !windows - http://frozenplague.net/?page_id=175#windows
  • !scaffold - http://tpope.us/rubyonrailsfaq.html
  • !passenger - Passenger (mod_rails) is an Apache module for running Rails applications. It is fast, sexy and very easy to setup. http://www.modrails.com/
  • Other resources: Peepcode's setup guide: http://peepcode.com/products/phusion-passenger Railscasts: http://railscasts.com/episodes/122-passenger-in-development
  • !webhosts - Ruby on Rails hosting can be provided for by any (decent) webhost, for a list of webhosts (we won't normally recommend them) look here: http://wiki.rubyonrails.com/rails/pages/RailsWebHosts
  • !rubyonrails-talk - http://groups.google.com/group/rubyonrails-talk
  • !yourownblog - http://nubyonrails.com/articles/about-this-blog-memcached - Every beginning Rails developer should write their own blog software.
  • !select_all - http://guides.rails.info/finders.html#_tt_select_all_tt
  • !i18n - http://guides.rubyonrails.org/i18n.html - Guide on i18n by Sven Fuchs and Karel Minařík
  • !howtoaskforhelp - http://frozenplague.net/?p=267
  • !acl - ACL (Access Control List) System 2 - Great for restricting access to actions - http://github.com/ezmobius/acl_system2
  • !skitch - http://skitch.com - Image sharing site with related application for Mac OS X
  • !deploy-ubuntu - Deploying on Ubuntu / Debian using Apache, Rails, Passenger and Capistrano: http://frozenplague.net/?p=230
  • !quickref - http://www.zenspider.com/Languages/Ruby/QuickRef.html - Quick reference for the Ruby Language
  • !multi-updates - http://github.com/Radar/multi-updates/tree/master - An example application of how to update multiple rows from the same model at the same time.
  • !editor - Commonly used Rails editors: Textmate, Vim, Aptana, Emacs, Netbeans, Eclipse and (NOT) Dreamweaver (see !ide for ide lists)
  • !ide - Eclipse, Netbeans and Aptana. Please note if you are on Mac Os X an IDE is not recommended.
  • !git - Git is a version control system used for both Ruby on Rails and most plugin / gems. See http://git.or.cz/ for Git, http://codebase.com or http://github.com/ or http://unfuddle.com for hosting and http://railscasts.com/episodes/96 for managing Rails applications with git
  • !beginner - Resources for beginning in Ruby on Rails: http://guides.rubyonrails.org/ - http://peepcode.com/ - http://railscasts.com/
  • !cms - Content Managmenet Systems for Ruby on Rails: Typo http://typosphere.org - Mephisto http://mephistoblog.com/ - RadiantCMS http://radiantcms.org/
  • !haml - Haml is an alternative markup to HTML, for help and information please see the documentation http://haml.hamptoncatlin.com/docs/ or ##haml
  • !docs - Rails: http://api.rubyonrails.org/ Ruby: http://www.ruby-doc.org/core/
  • !hosts - Ruby on Rails hosting can be provided for by any (decent) webhost, for a list of webhosts (we won't normally recommend them) look here: http://wiki.rubyonrails.com/rails/pages/RailsWebHosts
  • !ask - Don't ask to ask, just ask! http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html
  • !capistrano - Capistrano is a neat deployment method for Rails applications, see the capistrano site for more details http://www.capify.org/getting-started/rails
  • !contributing - How to contribute to Rails, written by Mike Gunderloy: http://afreshcup.com/2008/10/27/contributing-to-rails-step-by-step/
  • !wwod - What would Obama do?
  • !ajax - New to Ajax / Javascript? Before asking a million questions in the channel please have a look through some great resources: http://peepcode.com/products/javascript-with-prototypejs http://peepcode.com/products/ajax-with-prototypejs
  • !association-basics - http://guides.rubyonrails.org/association_basics.html by Mike Gunderloy
  • !notabug - It's probably not a bug: http://www.catb.org/esr/faqs/smart-questions.html#id306810
  • !pebkac - PEBKAC: Problem Existing Between Keyboard And Chair. Also known as \"User Error\"
  • !used - Don't ask \"has anybody used ?\". It's better to just ask your problem and if anyone has used they will most likely answer.
  • !best - \"Best\" and \"better\" are subjective. Try to use a different term.
  • !cte - You must remove the line from config/environments/development.rb and config/environments/production.rb in order to get your app to function correctly: http://frozenplague.net/2008/11/cache-template-extensions-error/
  • !textmate - Kick-ass text editor for Macs. If you have a Mac, code, and don't use TextMate you're a fool. http://macromates.com/
  • !zen - Relax, take a deep breath, find your center - peace is waiting for you there.
  • !rails-ubuntu - How to set up and deploy on Ubuntu: http://frozenplague.net/2008/09/ubuntu-rails-apache-passenger-capistrano-you/
  • !scale - Ruby on Rails doesn't scale - nothing to see here - move along. http://twitter.com/
  • !try - Why don't you try it?
  • !pickaxe - http://rubycentral.com/book - Programming Ruby is a free online book on Ruby.
  • !everused - just post the fucking bug already
  • !rtft - This channel has a topic that contains helpful links. One of these links may help you. If you cannot see the topic, type /topic and press enter.
  • !version - Please tell us what version of Ruby, Rubygems and Rails you're running on so we can better help you. Also if you haven't already tell us your operating system too.
  • !logs - Check your logs. Namely everything in the log folder of your rails app and the error and access logs from Apache or whatever else you're using.
  • !section - Please section your pasties using the syntax of \"## section header\", for more information see this: http://skitch.com/radarlistener/9d6i/new-pastie
  • !paperclip - http://www.thoughtbot.com/projects/paperclip/ - A file upload plugin for Rails. w/ example http://github.com/anathematic/paperclip_example/tree/master
  • !attachment_fu - http://github.com/technoweenie/attachment_fu/tree/master - A file upload plugin for Rails.
  • !rboard - http://github.com/radar/rboard - A forum system built in Rails. It's compatible with Rails 2.2 and includes internationalization support.
  • !tutorial - you can probably find a tutorial on it on either, http://www.railscasts.com or http://www.peepcode.com
  • !migrations - http://guides.rubyonrails.org/migrations.html - Migrations Guide by Frederick Cheung
  • !gettingstarted - http://guides.rubyonrails.org/getting_started.html - Getting started with Ruby on Rails guide written by Mike Gunderloy
  • !restful-routing - http://frozenplague.net/2008/01/restful-routing-an-overview/ - Shorter guide to RESTful routing with Rails.
  • !will_paginate - http://github.com/mislav/will_paginate/tree/master - Pagination plugin for Rails.
  • !howlong - http://www.google.com.au/search?q=how+long+is+a+piece+of+string
  • !ohgoditburns - Your HTML skills are inferior: http://catb.org/esr/html-hell.html
  • !jquery - Main site: http://jquery.com/ Docs: http://visualjquery.com/
  • !rubygems - http://rubyforge.org/frs/?group_id=126 - The latest version of Rubygems (and all other versions) can be found here. Download the archived version, extract it and run \"ruby setup.rb\" to install it.
  • !rspec - http://rspec.info - RSpec is a Behaviour Driven Development framework for Ruby.
  • !cucumber - Cucumber - Successor to stories for rspec http://github.com/aslakhellesoy/cucumber/tree/master
  • !texteditor - Windows - \"E Text Editor\" - http://www.e-texteditor.com/
  • Linux - Vim (http://www.vim.org/) or Emacs (http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/) Mac - TextMate (http://macromates.com/) or Vim, Emacs (as above)
  • !arrayconditions - How to use array conditions in find statements ([\"field = ?\", some_variable]) http://guides.rubyonrails.org/finders.html#_array_conditions
  • !rest - REST - (REpresentational State Transfer) - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Representational_State_Transfer
  • !thinkingsphinx - http://ts.freelancing-gods.com/ - Thinking Sphinx - Plugin for Rails, uses Sphinx (full-text search engine for MySQL and PostgreSQL)
  • !wrong - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WrjwaqZfjIY
  • !dry - Don't repeat yourself. Asking the same question repeatedly will not give you more answers.
  • !books - What book should you get? - http://is.gd/hYWq
  • !gist - http://gist.github.com - Put your codes online with pretty syntax highlighting and the ability to embed it into other pages.
  • !slicehost - http://slicehost.com - A hosting company that provides a box that you can install Ruby on Rails on to.
  • !ruby191 - Ruby 1.9.1 does NOT work with certain Rubygems and may not be fully compatible with Rails yet. For more information see : http://frozenplague.net/2009/01/ruby-191-rubygems-rails/ and http://isitruby19.com
  • !activemerchant - Activemerchant provides you with a way to interact between your application and supported payment gateways: http://github.com/Shopify/active_merchant/tree/master
  • !saasy - SaaSy: Scaffold-like application for payment gateways (uses ActiveMerchant): http://github.com/maccman/saasy/tree/master
  • !auth - If you want to implement user's with passwords in your application, you can use AuthLogic: http://github.com/binarylogic/authlogic/tree/master or Restful Authentication: http://github.com/technoweenie/restful-authentication/tree/master
  • !survivalguide - http://tore.darell.no/doc.html - Survival guide for Ruby. Must read.
  • !wiki - http://wiki.rubyonrails.org/
  • !ducktyping - Learn about Duck Typing here: http://blade.nagaokaut.ac.jp/cgi-bin/scat.rb/ruby/ruby-talk/100511
  • !tags - tag plugins : http://github.com/mbleigh/acts-as-taggable-on/tree/master w/ plugin example: http://github.com/anathematic/taggable-example/tree/master
  • !application - As of Rails 2.3 ApplicationController has been moved from app/controllers/application.rb to app/controllers/application_controller.rb to better follow convention. Rename your application.rb file using 'rake rails:update:application_controller'.
  • !render - Layouts and Rendering Guide by Mike Gunderloy
  • !layout - Layouts and Rendering Guide by Mike Gunderloy
  • !cache_template_loading - cache_template_loading= is a deprecated method. Remove this from all files in config/environments
  • !tasks - Have you checked the rake tasks for your project, yet? Simply type 'rake -T' inside your application's directory to list the available rake tasks.
  • !expectedgot - If you're getting Model(#[num]) expected, got String(#[num]) this is because you're passing in from the form a parameter with the name of a belongs_to association. Make sure you change the field name to association_id.
  • !elaborate - Instead of simply saying 'something is broken' please elaborate on this by showing us the code and the error that you are getting by making a pastie (http://pastie.org) about it.
  • !files - Storing files in the database will only lead to misery and heartbreak. Store files where they belong, in the filesystem. Use a file-upload plugin such as Paperclip to acheive this.
  • !caching - How to scale your Rails application: http://railslab.newrelic.com/scaling-rails
  • !topic - Read the topic. It contains useful information. Failure to read the topic will result in horrible consequences.
  • !validations - How to make your own custom validations: http://august.lilleaas.net/creating_your_own_validations
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