Gems are located in the Gemfile inside your project folder. Let’s have a look at some you’ll want to have.

will_paginate

Adds pagination to your app

Installation

Add to Gemfile

gem 'will_paginate'

Install

bundle install

Usage

In a .html.erb file, render page links in the view:

<%= will_paginate @places %>
  <% @places.each do |place| %>
    <h1><%= place.name %></h1>
    <br />
  <% end %>
<%= will_paginate @places %>

In your controller, you can define how many entries per page you want to display. In the example below, it will list 3 entries per page.

def index
  @places = Place.all.paginate(page: params[:page], per_page: 3)
end

Source: https://github.com/mislav/will_paginate

simple_form

Forms made easy!

Installation

Add to Gemfile

gem 'simple_form'

Install

bundle install

Run the generator

rails generate simple_form:install

Usage

In a .html.erb file:

<%= simple_form_for @place do |f| %>
  <%= f.input :name %>
  <%= f.input :address %>
  <%= f.input :description %>
  <br />
  <%= f.submit 'Create', class: 'btn btn-primary' %>
<% end %>

Source: https://github.com/plataformatec/simple_form

devise

Adds user management

Installation

Add to Gemfile

gem 'devise'

Install

bundle install

Run the generator

rails generate devise:install

Configure device at config/environments/development.rb

Add this line:

config.action_mailer.default_url_options = { host: 'localhost', port: 3000 } 

Edit code in app/views/layouts/application.html.erb

Add this line:

<% if notice %>
  <p class="alert alert-success"><%= notice %></p>
<% end %>
<% if alert %>
  <p class="alert alert-danger"><%= alert %></p>
<% end %>

Add sign-up and login links in app/views/layouts/application.html.erb

<p class="navbar-text pull-right">
<% if user_signed_in? %>
  Logged in as <strong><%= current_user.email %></strong>.
  <%= link_to 'Edit profile', edit_user_registration_path, :class => 'navbar-link' %> |
  <%= link_to "Logout", destroy_user_session_path, method: :delete, :class => 'navbar-link'  %>
<% else %>
  <%= link_to "Sign up", new_user_registration_path, :class => 'navbar-link'  %> |
  <%= link_to "Login", new_user_session_path, :class => 'navbar-link'  %>
<% end %>
</p>

Force user to be redirected to login page if not logged in.

Edit in app/controllers/application_controller.rb

before_action :authenticate_user!

Source: https://guides.railsgirls.com/devise

geocoder

Adds geocoding from Google API

Installation

Add to Gemfile

gem 'geocoder'

Install

bundle install

Create a migration file, run this in your terminal:

rails generate migration AddLatitudeAndLongitudeToModel latitude:float longitude:float
rake db:migrate

Example of a migration file adding latitude and longitude columns for existing Places table:

class AlterPlacesAddLatAndLng < ActiveRecord::Migration[5.0]
  def change
    add_column :places, :latitude, :float
    add_column :places, :longitude, :float
  end
end

Add these lines in your app/model/place.rb

geocoded_by :address
after_validation :geocode

Add this script in show.html.erb

<script>
<% if @place.latitude.present? && @place.longitude.present? %>
  function initMap() {
  var myLatLng = {lat: <%= @place.latitude %>, lng: <%= @place.longitude %>};
  var map = new google.maps.Map(document.getElementById('map'), {
    zoom: 15,
    center: myLatLng
  });
  var marker = new google.maps.Marker({
    position: myLatLng,
    map: map,
    title: 'Hello World!'
  });
}
</script>

Source: https://www.rubydoc.info/gems/geocoder/1.3.7

figaro

Easily configure your APIs in Heroku deployment

Installation

Add to Gemfile

gem 'figaro'

Install and create a commented config/application.yml file and add it to your .gitignore

bundle exec figaro install

Update your API keys in config/application.yml

For updating API keys in heroku, go to your terminal:

figaro heroku:set -e productionheroku restart

Source: https://github.com/laserlemon/figaro

carrierwave

image uploader

Installation

Add to Gemfile

gem 'carrierwave'

Install

bundle install

In your terminal

rails generate uploader Image

It will generate this:

app/uploaders/image_uploader.rb

Create a migration file

rails g migration add_image_to_courses image:string

Run the migration file

rake db:migrate

In your model

class User < ApplicationRecord  mount_uploader :image, ImageUploaderend

Add to a html.erb i.e. app/views/instructor/courses/new.html.erb

<%= f.input :image %>

Add to controller app/controllers/instructor/courses_controller.rb

params.require(:course).permit(:title, :description, :cost, :image)

Add to show.html.erb i.e. app/views/instructor/courses/show.html.erb

<%= image_tag @course.image, class: 'img-fluid' %>

Also update the following:

  • app/views/courses/show.html.erb
  • app/views/courses/index.html.erb
  • app/views/instructor/courses/show.html.erb

Image Resolution with ImageMagick, more on carrierwave

Carrierwave in shows that MiniMagick and RMagick can be used

It shows here app/uploaders/image_uploader.rb

class ImageUploader < CarrierWave::Uploader::Base
  # Include RMagick or MiniMagick support:
  # include CarrierWave::RMagick
  # include CarrierWave::MiniMagick

Installing ImageMagick

We need to update our development environment’s database of programs to make sure when we install a program we’re getting the latest version.

$ sudo apt-get update

Install ImageMagick

$ sudo apt-get install imagemagick

Installation MiniMagick

Add to Gemfile

gem 'mini_magick'

Install

bundle install

Uncomment MiniMagick in app/uploaders/image_uploader.rb

class ImageUploader < CarrierWave::Uploader::Base
  # Include RMagick or MiniMagick support:
  # include CarrierWave::RMagick
  include CarrierWave::MiniMagick

That line gives CarrierWave the ability to reach out to the ImageMagick program we installed on our program, through the MiniMagick gem. This will allow us to resize the image.

Unlocks image-resizing abilities such as resize_to_fill, resize_to_fit, resize_and_pad, and resize_to_limit.

Add this in app/uploaders/image_uploader.rb

# Process files as they are uploaded:
process resize_to_fill: [800, 350]

Integrating Amazon S3 for Video Uploads

Installation

Add this line to your application’s Gemfile:

gem 'carrierwave-aws'

Run the bundle command from your shell to install it:

bundle install

Step 1: Configuring the Initializer

Normally we would install our gem first, however to prevent bugs when switching from fog to AWS we need to update our initializer first.

You can read the details of how to configure the carrierwave-aws gem in the Usage Section of the Documentation. Following the pattern they specify, we should update config/initializers/carrierwave.rb to look like this:

# config/initializers/carrierwave.rb
CarrierWave.configure do |config|
  config.storage    = :aws
  config.aws_bucket = ENV["AWS_BUCKET"]
  config.aws_acl    = "public-read"
  config.aws_credentials = {
      access_key_id:     ENV["AWS_ACCESS_KEY"],
      secret_access_key: ENV["AWS_SECRET_KEY"],
      region:            ENV["AWS_REGION"]
  }
end

Now save the file.

Step 2: Updating our Gemfile

Add the carrierwave-aws gem as described by the documentation. Edit the Gemfile to look like this:

gem 'carrierwave'gem 'mini_magick'gem 'carrierwave-aws'

Save the file and run the command to install the gem.

$ bundle install

Then restart your server.

Step 3: Add Region to application.yml

We need to add a region to our application.yml file. Open up your config/application.yml and add this line to specify the region we want to use:

# config/application.yml
AWS_ACCESS_KEY: "Your-access-key"
AWS_SECRET_KEY: "Your-secret-key"
AWS_BUCKET:     "Your-bucket"
AWS_REGION:     "us-east-1"

Save the file.

Step 4: Updating the Uploader

If you remember from before, we specified inside the storage provider for the uploader to use :fog. Rather than that, we need to switch it to :aws.

# encoding: utf-8
class ImageUploader < CarrierWave::Uploader::Base
  # Include RMagick or MiniMagick support:
  # include CarrierWave::RMagick
  include CarrierWave::MiniMagick
  # Choose what kind of storage to use for this uploader:
  #storage :file
  storage :aws
  # A bunch more comments down here....
end

Save the file.

One more thing we will have to do is re-sync the localhost with heroku. To do this we need to run a simple command:

$ figaro heroku:set -e production

Make sure uploads continue to work by uploading an image for a course and make sure it goes through successfully.

VideoJS

Add css file before </head>

<link href="http://vjs.zencdn.net/5.12.6/video-js.css" rel="stylesheet">

Add JavaScript files before </body>

<script src="http://vjs.zencdn.net/5.12.6/video.js"></script>
<script src="http://vjs.zencdn.net/ie8/1.1.2/videojs-ie8.min.js"></script>

Note: You must place the videoJS script tags in the bottom of the body otherwise you will have issues loading the video player because of Turbolinks.

Thanks for reading! Hope this was helpful.