Working With Rails

Helper Problem

Microformat publisher Rails plugin to generate microformats models with a DSL, it also provides view methods to display them.

License: MIT-License. See MIT-LICENSE file.

Installation

Install as a normal Rails plugin with script/plugin install http://microformats.rubyforge.org/svn/...

Domain Specific Language

The microformats are defined using a DSL, the definitions go on the structures directory, which each microformat in its file. If a microformat has a subformat, then the subformat also goes in its file.

The plugin comes with geo, adr, hCard and hCalendar already defined. This existing microformats are a good source of examples on how to define new microformats.

Generating the models, migrations, etc

Once the required microformats are defined, they can be generated with the Rails generator.

+./script/generate microformat h_card

This will generate the hcard model, with its migration, fixtures and stub tests. It will also create the hCard models.

View Helpers

The view helpers for the microformats take the form of “microformat-name_for”. This initial version provides helper methods for geo, adr, hcard and hcalendar microformats. The helpers are similar to the form_for method in Rails. The arguments passed are the microformat object that holds the data, an options hash to specify some html attributes and a message to follow after the first html tag.

To display the data, the helpers yields a MicroformatInternal class that generates dinamically the methods needed for a specific microformat based on the attributes of the ActiveRecord models. As an example the geo microformat will use GeoInternal class, which will display longitude and latitude. Another role of the internal classes is to validate the microformats if they have any specific requirements.

A simple example of a view helper microformat is geo:

<% geo_for @geo, {:tag => :div, :internal_tag => :span}, "GEO:" %> do |g|
  <%= g.latitude %>
  <%= g.longitude %>
<% end %>

Will generate

0.55555

In this case, g is the GeoInternal class, which will check that latitude and longitude attributes exist in the @geo microformat attributes in the ActiveRecord model.

For full details of how to use the helper methods see their documentation at:

[geo_for] Microformat::Helpers::GeoPublic [hcard_for] Microformat::Helpers::HCardPublic [hcalendar_for] Microformat::Helpers::HCalendarPublic [address_for] Microformat::Helpers::AdrPublic

NOTE: This description has been extracted from the Plugin README and so the formatting may need updating to make browser friendly