Hi there.
I am a RoR newbie and come from the Java/C# perspective. After digging
into Rails I would like to convert an ASP.NET project -that served as
a protoype- to RoR.
The only thing that I haven´t got a good solution for is handling
calendar events. With that I specifically mean creating, moving an
event or a set of events as well as recurrence handling - similar to
Google C. if you will. There numerous projects and controls to
do that in ASP.NET and maybe someone already did something similar for
RoR.
Ok, so it seems like there is no “premade” component (or it is so
obvious that nobody cared to answer ;-)).
Still, it would be interesting to know if anyone on this list
implemented an Event scheduler in Rails.
I´ve seen somebody creating a nice clientside UI implementation in
ExtJS. Maybe I should take this as a starting point.
Any hint or idea is appreciated.
Elmar
P.s.: Man, there is even a “Sponsored Link” ad for an ASP.NET Calendar
Control on this page as I write this. Maybe I just need to type in
enough keywords (like RUBY EVENT CALENDAR) so that the Google Ad words
filter will eventually figure it out for me ;-).
There are a couple of gems that help with recurrence. Check rubyforge
for those.
As for the UI, you’ll have to roll your own for the most part. You’ll
find that RoR is significantly more ‘hands on’ in UI than .net.
Personally, I think that’s a good thing.
You touch on my point a bit obliquely. I found that, by and large,
the .net framework renders bad html. It’s not ‘semantically
sensitive’ so to speak. For example, a menu is really just a list of
options. The .net framework has tended to cram things like that into
a pixel-perfect table but semantically it’s an ordered or unordered
list. The advantage of using the right kind of markup is that those
users who choose to turn off your pretty css still get a very clean,
well organized page. (Okay, the well organized part is still up to
you…
There are a couple of gems that help with recurrence. Check rubyforge
for those.
As for the UI, you’ll have to roll your own for the most part. You’ll
find that RoR is significantly more ‘hands on’ in UI than .net.
Personally, I think that’s a good thing.
All of the points mentioned above actually led Microsoft to similar
conclusions and that is why the recently came up with rip-off Rails
and call it ASP.NET MVC.
Sure, there is still a way to go until it matures but it´s a fresh
approach.
… and don’t forget a good semantic structure helps search engines
find their way and that in its turn gives you a more accurate and
higher ranked position. Reduced total page size is usually something
that you also get for free.