Archive for the ‘Ruby on Rails’ Category

Five Reasons to Use Spree For Your Storefront

On July 26th, 2017 in Ruby on Rails, technology
Online stores have become pretty obvious. If you own a business that is related to selling something, then it has become necessary to take your business online. But the question that bothers a person more is which e-commerce platform is ideal for them? According to recent marketing strategies and research, an ideal e-commerce platform is the one which is cost efficient, easy to use, scalable, provide support, etc. Basically, the answer is Spree Commerce. spree-commerce-integration-service Spree Commerce is known for the best features, functionality, and user experience. More than 20,000 online stores are running on Spree Commerce. This is not enough, let us check out the reasons why Spree is the best storefront for online business-

1. It is absolutely free

Image result for spree commerce Yes, you read it right, it is free! It is an open source project which is completely free. You can simply download, set it up, and start your project. You can make any modifications in the code according to your project, you don’t have t buy any license or give a part of your revenue.

2. Ruby on Rails is the master

Image result for ruby on rails Spree is based on Ruby on Rails. It is an elegant, fast, and modern programming language that provides amazing solutions. It completes the work in less time, efforts, and resources; and also enhances the functionality, comparing to other e-commerce platforms. You can easily customize your platform according to your and customer’s needs.

3. Order management

Image result for order management on spree Managing orders, customers, and payments become a time-consuming task. Spree Commerce makes this work easy and efficient. It makes the management system fact. It gives and efficient, simple, and easily functional dashboard. You can easily adjust payment methods, product sorting, tax rates, currencies and other vital settings in just a few clicks.

4. Advanced Tools, Features, and Integration

Image result for order management on spree Apart from amazing management, it has a set of amazing features that improve the performance of your store. There are different options for SEO like keyword targeting, back linking, permalinks, meta-description of products, etc. It also supports major payment methods and gateways. It can be easily integrated with external services like Jirafe, Mandrill, Amazon, Bronto, Odoo, Shipstation, Zendesk, Netsuite, Mailchimp and etc.

5. The community is amazing

Image result for spree community Spree has a huge community with very active developers who develop the platform, add new functionalities, and solve challenges together. They also have support which solves the issues you get. There are free workshops, training, and the famous annual SpreeConf. Spree Commerce provides a complete set of documentation as well.

Conclusion

In conclusion, a good developer can build an efficient and smart solution for your e-commerce site. It gives a robust e-commerce solution. It is best for the start-up or small businesses that are short of finances. It is an amazing solution to boost your sales as well.

9 Things You Should Know About Ruby on Rails

On June 20th, 2017 in rails, Ruby on Rails
There are many programming languages, different frameworks, and uncountable developers. But Ruby on Rails has become one of the most popular languages among the developers. Though most of the people start their programming career with languages like Java, C++, PHP, etc., Ruby on Rails is what startups and some full-fledged companies use while developing websites. Image result for ruby on rails The first question that crosses everyone’s mind after hearing ‘Ruby on Rails’ is ‘What is Ruby on Rails?’. In this article, we are going to discuss some important things about ‘Ruby on Rails’. Let us start-

1. What is Ruby on Rails? Is it one thing or Ruby and Rails are two different things?

To be specific, Ruby is a programming language, whereas Rails is a web application framework designed to work with Ruby. Ruby is simple to learn and is super fun. It is easier than other programming languages. But the only problem with Ruby was that it was not designed for use on the web until Rails came. Rails are the most popular framework for Ruby basically make it possible to write a Ruby application and have it be a website.

2. Is ‘Rails’ good for the beginners?

Before moving to ‘Rails’, the first thing you need to learn is Ruby. The reason behind ‘Rails’ being good for beginners is because Ruby is simple to learn. Ruby is easier because the language is super flexible and not always case sensitive. And Rails is fun for beginners because it is robust and it does so much of the hard work for you. The developers do not have to bang their heads to find a minute mistake in the whole code. Basically, the first you have to learn Ruby and then you will be able to learn Rails.

3. How is Rails developer different from Ruby programmer?

As mentioned above, you have to learn Ruby first because Rails is a framework. Technically, a good developer can easily on Ruby web apps using other web frameworks like Sinatra. But a developer would not be hired just to write Ruby, So, it is important for a Ruby developer to learn Rails for future.

4. How good should a developer be to get hired as Ruby on Rails professional? What makes Rails so special?

To be honest, it takes a lot of time to become a Ruby on Rails expert. Basically, you should be comfortable in working on Ruby. You cannot dive into Rails without learning Ruby, but it is important to learn Rails afterwards. It is just like learning to ride a bicycle before learning to ride a bike. Specifically, you need to know about all the basics including data types, object orientation, debugging, etc. And the thing that makes Rails so special is because of its rapid prototyping. You can develop a Rails app with few hours. There are few frameworks that could make it possible.

5. What could be built with it?

Well, the answer is you can build any web application with Rails. Some of the most popular website built on Ruby on Rails are Shopify, Airbnb, Bloomberg, SoundCloud, etc.

6. Is possible to build mobile apps with it?

This is a bit complicated. It is not possible to literally build a mobile app in Rails. But you can build a web application in Rails, and use it as the backend for a mobile app. There are other options like RubyMotion which makes it easy to build native iOS and Android apps using Ruby. Talking in a straightforward manner, you cannot literally use Rails in developing mobile apps, but it could be an important part of the project.

7. Shouldn’t I learn JavaScript instead?

Well, if you are asking instead, then the answer is no. And if you ask also, then the answer is yes. The reality is a Ruby on Rails developer to need to learn JavaScript one time or another. It is not a prerequisite skill but it will help in future for further progress. And if you are thinking about which one you should be learning first, then the answer is Ruby is easier to learn than JavaScript. JavaScript is the first preference of students, but in the end, you have to learn both.

8. How long would it take to learn?

A few months of dedicated study can make you comfortable with Ruby on Rails. But if you want to be a master, you have to give at least 10,000 hours. Your level of familiarity with different programming languages would have an impact on you being comfortable with Ruby on Rails.
Also Read:Java vs JavaScript- All You Should Know

9. How to get started with this?

If you are already familiar with programming languages, then it would be easy for you to learn Ruby on Rails. But if you don’t know even a single thing about coding, then first you need to learn HTML & CSS. And then you need to learn Ruby, Git & command line.
The most important thing you need to do while learning something is having a project by your side. It would help you to learn, and find out your weak spots. These are the most common questions that come to everyone’s mind. So, if you have any question, just comment below and we will try to answer it!

Ruby on Rails vs Java Enterprise, Which one is Better?

On April 5th, 2017 in programming, Ruby on Rails
Which is the best framework for your website? Have you ever given this thing a thought? Well, there are many languages which helps to design the framework for a website. There is Ruby on Rails, JEE, ASP.NET, Django and much more. But there are few languages that most of the programmers prefer. ASP.NET is a Microsoft platform which takes it straight to the risk zone. You cannot risk being locked into a Microsoft platform whereas other platforms are niche. So everything comes down to Java Enterprise (JEE) and Ruby on Rails (RoR).

Here are some differences through which you can figure out which one is better for your website:

#1 The focus of Ruby on Rails is on fast and agile development whereas Java Enterprise focus on flexibility and integration with enterprise IT.
#2 The common tasks in RoR are made very simple as compared to JEE. In JEE, even the simplest jobs need extraordinary efforts like to write XML configuration or auto-generate boilerplate code.
#3 RoR is used by start-up employees; JEE is used in the IT nerve-centres of investment banks. Image result for java vs ruby on rails #4 As a developer, RoR is pretty easy to learn, while the main problem a newcomer faces in JEE is to choose between huge number of different libraries and different ways to do the same thing. There is no particular libraries which are widely used.
#5 There are few people who work on Ruby on Rails, while every computer science student learns Java.
#6 In manageability of the code, JEE is better as it is easier to find out the things. Image result for java vs ruby on rails #7 Fortunately, both frameworks offer reasonable support for automated regression testing; Ruby on Rails probably a bit more so, because it relies primarily on automated tests (rather than a type system) to ensure things don’t fall apart horribly.

There are many aspects on which you can compare these two. Now the choice is yours. What do you think, which one would be the best for you? Tell us in comments!

Single Sign-On In Rails Application

On August 2nd, 2015 in Gems, rails, RoR App Development, Ruby on Rails, Ruby on Rails Application Development, Uncategorized
Single sign-on (SSO) is a property of access control of multiple related, but independent software systems. With this property a user logs in once and gains access to all systems without being prompted to log in again at each of them. Such as we once log in to google, we are permitted to access the Youtube, Docs, Google Drive etc. dnd1999110501 We may think about sharing the session cookies among the all domains but its generally not a good idea. One can steal cookies to sign in from other system or browser. Single SignOn Helps us in getting around this problem and implement a much robust system. How do we implement Single Sign-On in Rails App? We will try to get our hand around on how to build a prototype around a rails app to implement single sign-on. We will be looking a sample rails application powered by CASino gem Why we are using CASino ?
  1. Distributed under MIT LIcense
  2. Active Development since
  3. External authentication sources (LDAP, SQL)
  4. Two-factor authentication
  5. Session-overview for logged-in users
  6. Full localization support
  7. REST-API
So what is CASino exactly? CASino is a simple Single sign-on server application. It supports the CAS protocol and can therefore be used in combination with almost every web programming language out there. CAS is an authentication system originally created by Yale University to provide a trusted way for an application to authenticate a user. CAS centralizes authentication: It allows all your applications to ask users to login to a single sign-on server The implementation. Here we have two apps client and server. We assume that the app is using devise for the demonstration purposes. The Logic can easily be extended to other authentication methods though. The app is as simple as configuring a few variables in the CASino gem.
  1. user request to client domain .
  2. it redirects to the server if not authorised.
  3. Start with adding the gems client app
  4. redirects to back url to whichever client request url is
Step #1 Implementing the client application. Gemfile # If You face some compatability issues then use ruby 2.1 

gem 'devise_cas_authenticatable', git: '<a href="https://github.com/jpamaya/devise_cas_authenticatable">https://github.com/jpamaya/devise_cas_authenticatable</a>'
routes.rb 

devise_for :users, skip: [:sessions], controllers: { cas_sessions: 'sso_cas' }

devise_scope :user do

get "sign_in", to: "devise/cas_sessions#new"

delete "sign_out", to: "devise/cas_sessions#destroy"

end
devise.rb # ==> Configuration for SSO server authentication 

config.cas_base_url = "http://localhost:4000/"

config.cas_create_user = false

config.cas_destination_logout_param_name = 'service'

config.cas_enable_single_sign_out = true
User.rb 

devise :cas_authenticatable
Now run client application on localhost:3000 and begin with typing users/sign_in Since we overwrote devise’s sign in mechanism, so instead of presenting devise’s normal sign in page, we are redirected to localhost:4000 which is the backend app to authenticate the users. Lets prepare the backend app to authenticate the users.  Step #2 Start with implementing code in server app limitation use ruby ruby “2.1.5” and rails “3.2.11” check rails -v ‘~>(‘ 3.2.11’). for server app Gemfile #It users these db to store sessions and some tokens. casino will take care all about these 

gem 'sqlite3'   # for sqlite support

gem 'mysql2'    # for mysql support

gem 'pg'        # for postgresql support

gem 'casino'
Run bundle install and rails g casino:install The CAS configuration is stored under config/cas.yml. This is where you configure how your SSO handles logins. An example configuration can be found in the file config/cas.yml.example provide the valid db credentials and run the migrations. Run this app on localhost:4000 , Just follow the old steps
  1. Goto localhost:3000/users/sign_in
  2. You will redirected to localhost:4000 enter credentials click sign in
  3. You will be redirected back on successful login
In the links below you can find some ready made examples for you to clone these  apps and have better understanding of SSO.
Server exampleruby “2.1.5”git clone https://github.com/codescrum/casino-sso-server-example.gitRails 4 client examplegit clone https://github.com/codescrum/casino-sso-client-rails4-example.gitRails 3 client example git clone https://github.com/codescrum/casino-sso-client-rails3-example.git
Let us know in comments if you face any troubles in the implementation !! PS: Single Sign-out has been left as a thought for another day and we will discuss that in a follow up blog.

The technology stack powering the on demand applications

On June 16th, 2015 in Android, Node.js, programming, Real Time Programming, Ruby on Rails
Uber and Ola have given rise to a slew of Ondemand applications which claim themselves to be Uber/Ola of X. Some of the verticals where these applications have found their usability include but not limited to taxi, transportation, Logistics, Home Services, Health apps and so on. In this blog we will go deeper into the various components and technology involved in on Demand Apps. Components Involved in Building and On Demand App In most of the cases there are 3 components involved in building an On-Demand App:
  • A cloud backend for Data Interaction APIs and live dispatch of Jobs
  • An Android/iOS App user to make a job(e.g book a ride with Uber/Ola)
  • An app with the drivers to receive the jobs created by the users and attend to them.
  Lets analyze each of these components in detail and how one can go around building each of them. Web Backend Web Backend is the most critical part of the On Demand applications because backend is what powers both the consumer and the driver apps. The web backend must meet the following requirements for a successful implementation:
  • A Light footprint to dispatch the jobs on fly.
  • A Good dispatch components to maximize the efficiency of the field workers(drivers in case of uber).
  • A Socket connectivity to enable the jobs dispatch and job information to the user.
  • A Good structure for a flexible and structured development
  We have recently worked on Bodhik which is an Ondemand Application for Financial Advisory Services.

Capybara Basics For Automated testing of Ruby on Rails Application

On December 6th, 2014 in Automated Testing, Ruby on Rails
Automated Testing is an integral part of large scale production Ruby on Rails applications. A solid Integration test suite ensures that the integration between various components of the application is smooth and seamless. An integration test generally spans multiple controllers and actions, tying them all together to ensure they work together as expected. It tests more completely than either unit or functional tests do, exercising the entire stack, from the dispatcher to the database. Capybara comes in handy in simulating the testing in real user environment. In this blog we will explore various ways by which we can strengthen our apps with Capybara.

    • Capybara is an integration testing tool for rack based web applications. It simulates how a user would interact with a website.
    • Capybara helps in testing your web application as a real user would do. It is independent of the driver that is running your tests and comes with Rack::Test and Selenium support built in. For other drivers, you need to include their respective gem.
Capybara requires Ruby 1.9.3 or later and can be installed as a gem by listing in your gem file and then installing bundle or it may be installed directly by typing: 
gem install capybara
  • Include capybara in your helper file: 
    require 'capybara/rails'
Using Capybara with Rspec
Integrating capybara with rspec is fairly simple. Lets go through a step by step process to understand the integration. The following test simulates a login in a real user environment.
  • Include capybara’s rspec directory 
    require 'capybara/rspec'
  • Capybara specs are required to be placed in spec/features
  • Here is a simple test to test the login page working. 
    describe "Login" do
before :each do
user = User.create(:email =&gt; 'RoR@enbake.com'”,:password =&gt; 'password')
end
it "logs the user in" do
visit login_path
fill_in "Email", with: user.email
fill_in "Password", with: 'kanwal_enbake'
click_button "Sign in"
page.should have_content "success"
end
end
    The test source code is fairly simple to understand and implement so I will not be going into the details here.
Testing Javascript with Capybara
  • By default Capybara uses the :rack_test driver, which is fast but limited as it does not support JavaScript. So you need to switch to Capybara.javascript_driver(:selenium by default) by using :js => true. For instance: describe “example of testing js”, :js => true do it “tests js with default js driver” do end it “tests js with one specific driver” , :driver => :webkit do end end
  • To make Capybara available in all test cases deriving fromActionDispatch::IntegrationTest : describe ActionDispatch::IntegrationTest include Capybara::DSL end
Drivers
  • You may sometimes, want to switch default driver and want to run everything in selenium, you could do:Capybara.default_driver = :selenium
  • In any case – provided you are using Rspec or Cucumber – if you want use faster :rack_test as your default_driver, and use JavaScript-capable driver only for selective test cases, you can use :js => true for Rspec and @javascript for Cucumber. By default, JavaScript tests are run using the :selenium driver. You can change this setting by Capybara.javascript_driver.
  • You can also, particularly in before or after blocks, change driver temporarily: Capybara.current_driver = :webkit
  • Capybara.use_default_driver would switch back to default driver
Note: switching the driver creates a new session, so you may not be able to switch in the middle of a test.
Techniques and Trivial Testing Tasks
Navigating
  • visit(‘/projects’)
  • visit(post_comments_path(post))
Clicking links and buttons
  • click_link(‘id-of-link’)
  • click_link(‘Link Text’)
  • click_button(‘Save’)
  • click(‘Link Text’) # Click either a link or a button
  • click(‘Button Value’)
Interacting with forms
  • fill_in(‘First Name’, :with => ‘John’)
  • fill_in(‘Password’, :with => ‘Seekrit’)
  • fill_in(‘Description’, :with => ‘Really Long Text…’)
  • choose(‘A Radio Button’)
  • check(‘A Checkbox’)
  • uncheck(‘A Checkbox’)
  • attach_file(‘Image’, ‘/path/to/image.jpg’)
  • select(‘Option’, :from => ‘Select Box’)
Scoping
  • within(“//li[@id=’employee’]”) do fill_in ‘Name’, :with => ‘Jimmy’ end
  • within(:css, “li#employee”) do fill_in ‘Name’, :with => ‘Jimmy’ end
  • within_fieldset(‘Employee’) do fill_in ‘Name’, :with => ‘Jimmy’ end
  • within_table(‘Employee’) do fill_in ‘Name’, :with => ‘Jimmy’ end
Querying
  • page.has_xpath?(‘//table/tr’)
  • page.has_css?(‘table tr.foo’)
  • page.has_content?(‘foo’)
  • page.should have_xpath(‘//table/tr’)
  • page.should have_css(‘table tr.foo’)
  • page.should have_content(‘foo’)
  • page.should have_no_content(‘foo’)
  • find_field(‘First Name’).value
  • find_link(‘Hello’).visible?
  • find_button(‘Send’).click
  • find(‘//table/tr’).click
  • locate(“//*[@id=’overlay'”).find(“//h1”).click
  • all(‘a’).each { |a| a[:href] }
  • current_path.should == post_comments_path(post)
Scripting
    • result = page.evaluate_script(‘4 + 4’)
    • page.execute_script(“$(‘#id_of_anything’)”).click
Note: unlike page.evaluate_script, page.execute_script do not return anything. You have to explicitly perform action to make it return a value Debugging
  • save_and_open_page
  • page.save_screenshot(‘screenshot.png’) *driver specfic
Asynchronous JavaScript
  • click_link(‘foo’)
  • click_link(‘bar’)
  • page.should have_content(‘baz’)
  • page.should_not have_xpath(‘//a’)
  • page.should have_no_xpath(‘//a’)
XPath and CSS
  • within(:css, ‘ul li’) { … }
  • find(:css, ‘ul li’).text
  • locate(:css, ‘input#name’).value
  • Capybara.default_selector = :css
  • within(‘ul li’) { … }
  • find(‘ul li’).text
  • locate(‘input#name’).value
Calling remote servers
  • Normally Capybara expects to be testing an in-process Rack application, but you can also use it to talk to a web server running anywhere on the internet, by setting app_host: Capybara.current_driver = :selenium Capybara.app_host =https://www.google.com
I hope the blog gives a good introduction of adding capybara tests to your rails apps. Its just the tip of the iceberg and the possibilities are endless. Lets make our apps more robust and flexible .. :).

Embedly Integration in Rails

On December 6th, 2014 in Gems, RoR App Development, Ruby on Rails, Ruby on Rails Application Development
Embedly is a powerful tool to embed multimedia content or images or even blogs in your application. It comes in handy especially to make your content easier to share.
Embedly provides an easy to use official ruby gem to integrate Embedly into your RoR app. The usage of the gem is fairly straight forward. I will try to go step by step on how to integrate embedly API into an RoR app.
  • Add the gem in your gem file 
    gem "embedly"
    Bundle the Gems
  • Get the API key from “https://app.embed.ly/login”. For the purpose of the blog we assume that the API key is accessible through the config variable AppConfig.embedly[:api_key]
  • Mostly the embeds will stay the view side logic so lets create a small helper to generate an embed from a Youtube Video. The call to the API is pretty straight forward and intuitive as we can see from the following code.
  • require 'embedly'
require 'json'def display
embedly_api =Embedly::API.new AppConfig.embedly[:api_key]
obj = embedly_api.oembed :url => 'http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sPbJ4Z5D-n4&feature=topvideos'
obj.first.html
end
  • The code calls the embedly API to generate an ombed for the youtube url and returns the html for the embed. This html can be used directly to embed the content into your blog or app.
  • Thats it !!

Enjoy supercharged content with your app and feel free to post any comments in the comments section.

A Step by Step Guide to Setup Rails application on Ec2 instance (Ubuntu Server)

On March 24th, 2014 in Amazon EC2, mysql, Open Source, Postgres, rails, Ruby on Rails, Ruby on Rails Application Development, RVM, Server Admin
Sometimes the Bitnami or other Rails AMIs doesn’t fit your needs directly and you will feel the need of building the Server yourself.Here I go step by step in building such a stack on top of Amaon EC2 Ubuntu Server.

  • Rails applications are a little bit different to install on servers but the process is very easy.Rails application needs a web server and an application server to run with. For development, it comes with default Webrick server that serve as application server on local machine. For setting it up on production server, we have the following choices on Web and application servers :-

    • Web servers

      1. Apache

      2. Nginx

    • Application Servers

      1. Passenger

      2. Thin

      3. Puma

      4. Unicorn

  • The simplest and best combination consists of Nginx + Passenger. It allows greater flexibility for configuration and also allows good speed over other combinations. So we are going to setup an Rails application using Nginx + passenger configuration on a bare Ubuntu server. Here are the steps :-

  1. Launch an Ec2 instance with ubuntu AMI. Make sure you have HTTP and SSH access to the server.

  2. SSH into the server by using private key (.pem) used while launching the instance and install the available updates by running :-

    sudo apt-get install updates
  3. Now you need to setup ruby on your server, so install the single user rvm ruby by following this blog.

  4. Load the rvm and make the installed ruby as default by running the following commands :-

    source ~/.rvm/scripts/rvm
    rvm use 2.1.0 –default

  5. Install the version control to clone your rails application to server. We generally use Git with rails application which can be installed by running the following command :-

    sudo apt-get install git

  6. Now clone your application on the server :-

    git clone yourepo.git

    Note:- In case of private git repository, you need to add public key of server to deploy keys of your repository, otherwise you will be promped with an permission denied error.

    OR

    Deploy using application to this server using Capistrano script. Please read this blog for more details on deploying your application using Capistrano.

  7. Now go to your application and install the gems by running bundle install command. If you want to setup your database on the same server, you can do the same by using the following commands 😐

    • In case of MYSQL

      sudo apt-get install mysql-server mysql-client
      sudo apt-get install libmysql++-dev

    • In case of POSTGRESQL, follow this blog for installation and then install the development headers

      sudo apt-get install libpq-dev

      After setting this up, migrate your databases in whichever environment you want to launch the server.

  8. Now install the Passenger gem by running :-

    gem install passenger

  9. Next step is to install the Nginx server, but we have some pre-requisits for this.

      1. It needs curl development headers which can be installed by :-

        sudo apt-get install libcurl4-openssl-dev

      2. It will be installed under /opt directory and your user should have permissions to that folder, so make your user as user owner for /opt directory by :-

        sudo chown -R ubuntu /opt

  10. Now install the Nginx server with passenger extension by running the following command :-

    passenger-install-nginx-module

  11. Set your Nginx server as service in init script by using the following commands :- 

    wget -O init-deb.sh http://library.linode.com/assets/660-init-deb.sh
sudo mv init-deb.sh /etc/init.d/nginx
sudo chmod  +x /etc/init.d/nginx
sudo /usr/sbin/update-rc.d -f nginx defaults

  12. Setup your application path in the nginx configuration file i.e. /opt/nginx/conf/nginx.conf.

    server {

    listen 80;

    server_name localhost;

    root /home/ubuntu/my_application/public #<-- be sure to point to 'public'

    passenger_enabled on;

    rails_env production;

    }

  13. Lastly start your server by running the following command :-

    sudo service nginx start

     

Braintree Integration In Rails Application

On February 8th, 2014 in Braintree, Payment Gateways, RoR App Development, Ruby on Rails, Ruby on Rails Application Development
Braintree is one gateway that is getting a lot of traction and user love these days due to its ease of use and getting started easily. I have indicated here a few things that should get you started with braintree in rails quickly. In this Blog, we’ll securely process a credit card transaction using the official braintree gem and the Client-side encryption method, utilizing Braintree.js library. The blog covers the case where the form to accept the payments is rendered on the client side only.     Note: Before starting you’ll need to sign up for a Sandbox account. That will provide us with the required braintree API keys. There are two parts to the problem. First one is setting up the form and securing the data to be sent to the server. The next is to process the transaction the server side. Payment Form A simple payment form captures the credit card information along with amount of payment to be made. Here goes a very simple HTML form which asks for all the required info: 
</pre>
<h1>Braintree Credit Card Transaction Form</h1>
<div><form id="braintree- payment-form" action="/create_transaction" method="POST"><label>Card Number</label>
<input type="text" autocomplete="off" size="20" data-encrypted-name="number" />

<label>CVV</label>
<input type="text" autocomplete="off" size="4" data-encrypted-name="cvv" />

<label>Expiration (MM/YYYY)</label>
<input type="text" name="month" size="2" /> / <input type="text" name="year" size="4" />

<input id="submit" type="submit" /></form></div>
<pre>
Next up, we need to encrypt the payment that is being sent from client side to our server for processing. Braintree provides a nice JS library to encrypt the data that is being sent from your form. The integration is as simple as including the library and calling a do it all method. 
<script type="text/javascript" src="https://js.braintreegateway.com/v1/braintree.js"></script><script type="text/javascript">// <![CDATA[
var braintree = Braintree.create("YourClientSideEncryptionKey"); braintree.onSubmitEncryptForm('braintree-payment-form');
// ]]></script>
As you can see, we just did couple of steps to secure the data being sent to the server.
  • We initialized the Braintree.js with client-side encryption key.
  • We then called the Braintree.js onSubmitEncryptForm method with the id of the form to encrypt the form before sending it to the server.
Thats it, your data is being securely sent to your server now for processing. Lets move on to the server side of the things. First up install the official braintree gem in your Gemfile. Setting up Rails Controller to commit a transaction with Braintree
  • Every Braintree user receives a unique set of API keys. These need to available in your application.
  • To retrieve the keys, first sign in your Sandbox account.
  • On the sandbox home page, you can get the API keys required to execute transactions with BrainTree.
  • The code will look like this(for sandbox environment)
  • 	Braintree::Configuration.environment = :sandbox
	Braintree::Configuration.merchant_id = “use_your_merchant_id”
	Braintree::Configuration.public_key = “use your public key”
	Braintree::Configuration.private_key = “use your private key”
  • Next Up, lets call up the API call to make the transaction. Braintree gem comes with exhaustive set of method calls to interact with the gateway. Here we initiate a sale with Braintree.
  • 	result = Braintree::Transaction.sale(:amount => “1000.00”,
:credit_card => {:number => params[:number], :cvv => params[:cvv], :expiration_month => params[:month], :expiration_year => params[:year]},
:options => {:submit_for_settlement => params[:settlement]})
  • Thats it !! The result object will tell us whether initiating the payment succeeded or not. The object comes loaded with methods to test the result like result.success? and result.failed?
This is not the end to the whole payment process in Braintree. Braintree will send calls/hooks informing your application about the various payment states but that is out of scope for the purpose of this blog and will better taken up as a post for separate. I hope the blog helps you get up with Braintree Quickly. Please feel free to drop in comments if any.

Uploading Files to Amazon S3 with Paperclip

On June 21st, 2013 in Gems, Paperclip, Ruby on Rails, Ruby on Rails Application Development
Paperclip is a very basic and useful ruby gem which is used in almost every rails application. Basically it allows user to upload images and other attachments for storage and processing. Storing Files/Attachments to Amazon S3 with paperclip is rather a simple job but i will still give a dig on out just if it comes out useful to anyone. There are two parts to the uploading. First Storge, Second Retrieval. We will take them one by one: Storage:
    • Apart from uploading files to your application server, paperclip also allows you to store your files on some external storage services such as Amazon S3 so as to provide your application better scalability, reliability, and speed than just storing files on the filesystem.
    • To upload your files to amazon s3 using paperclip, We can go through the following steps(assuming that you are already using paperclip to store files to your filesystem):-
    • Add the following gems to your Gemfile (This is the gem for including the Amazon SDK support):-
       gem 'aws-s3', :require => 'aws/s3'
 gem 'aws-sdk'
    • Run the ‘bundle install’ command.
    • Lets configure the model for paperclip :-
       class Post < ActiveRecord::Base
 attr_accessible :avatar
 has_attached_file :avatar,
 :styles => { :medium => "300x300>"},
 :storage => :s3,
 :s3_credentials=>{:access_key_id=>"AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID",
 :secret_access_key => "AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY"},
 :s3_permissions => "public-read",
 :path => ":id",
 :bucket => "AWS_BUCKET"
 end
    • Lets deciper the parameters above :
    1. s3_credentials : Takes a path, a File, or a Hash containing the access_key_id and secret_access_key that Amazon gives you.
    2. s3_permissions: This is a String that should be one of the access policies that S3 provides. The default for Paperclip is :public_read.
    3. bucket: This is the name of the S3 bucket that will store your files. Remember that the bucket must be unique across all of Amazon S3. If the bucket does not exist Paperclip will attempt to create it.
    4. path: This is the key under the bucket in which the file will be stored. The URL will be constructed from the bucket and the path. This is what you will want to interpolate. Keys should be unique, like filenames.
Retrieval Now, the Files that have been uploaded with Paperclip are stored in S3. However, metadata such as the file’s name, location on S3, and last updated timestamp are all stored in the model’s table in the database. Paperclip provides convenience methods to access the stored objects. e.g. To access the file’s url through the url method on the model’s file attribute (avatar in this example), you can use post.avatar.url (http://bucket.s3.amazonaws.com/…) Hope the blog comes in handy for someone looking to integrate paperclip with Amazon S3 pretty quickly.