rails

A new version of Radiant, a Ruby on Rails content management systems, is coming soon. Radiant 0.9.0 has just been released as a release candidate.

In this release the interface for the CMS has been updated to make Radiant more stylish and compact. Apart from the stylistic changes, there are a few other significant changes to the user interface worth mentioning:

• There are now two levels of tabs. The intent here is to provide more organization for folks that have a lot of extensions installed. The primary top level tabs are now “Content”, “Design”, and “Settings”.
• Hot-keys have been added for saving. You can now press Ctrl+S to save a page and continue editing, or Ctrl+Shift+S to save a page and return to the index page.
• The number of flash messages have been reduced in favor of status messages that pop up when you submit a form.
• Support has been added for the tab key to text areas. On Safari and Firefox there is also support for multi-line indent and unindent.

There are a number of changes that did not make it into this release candidate that still may make it into the final version in one form or another. Additional features that may be added by the developers in the final version include internationalization, asset management, password reset, filter toolbar, and a revamped settings interface.

The original announcement for this release candidate has additional information and can be found at RadiantCMS.org.

Building Dynamic Web 2.0 Websites with Ruby on Rails is a new book from Packt which helps users to design, develop, and deploy a fully featured website using Ruby on Rails. Written by A. P. Rajshekhar, this book is a tutorial to create a complete Web 2.0 website with Ruby on Rails.

Ruby on Rails is an open-source web application framework ideally suited to building business applications; accelerating and simplifying the creation of database-driven websites. Often shortened to Rails or RoR, it provides a stack of tools to rapidly build web applications based on the Model-View-Controller design pattern.

Each chapter in this book adds a new feature to the site, adding new knowledge, skills, and techniques. This book is for anyone who has basic concepts of object-oriented programming as well as relational databases and wants to develop online applications using Ruby on Rails. Prior knowledge of Ruby or Rails is not expected.

For more details on the book, please visit http://www.packtpub.com/building-dynamic-websites-with-ruby-on-rails/book.

Ruby on Rails Enterprise Application Development is a new book from Packt that helps readers to build a complete Ruby on Rails Business Application from start to finish. Written by Elliott Smith and Rob Nichols, this book concentrates on application development as a whole process and is intended to complement existing Rails tutorials. Each chapter deals with a key feature or functional area of a complex, full-scale Rails application.

All businesses have processes that can be automated via computer applications, thereby reducing costs and simplifying everyday operations. This book demonstrates that a modern web application framework makes an ideal platform for such applications. It shows how the attributes that make the Rails framework so successful for Internet applications also provide great benefit within a business intranet. These attributes include easy roll-out and update of applications, centralized processing and data handling, simple maintenance, straightforward code development, and scalability.