# New user questions

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/new-user-questions/88125>\
**Category:** Radiant CMS\
**Created:** [March 8, 2007, 11:41am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/new-user-questions/88125 "2007-03-08T11:41:30Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![raphael\_b](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/7c8e57/32.png) [@raphael\_b](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/raphael_b)\
**Post date:** [March 8, 2007, 11:41am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/new-user-questions/88125/1 "2007-03-08T11:41:30Z")

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Hi,

I’m planning to use radiant to power a website, but before taking the  
plunge I have some questions. I installed the 0.6 release candidate.  
Here are questions I couldn’t answer by looking at the docs or the  
mailing list archive:

- an applicaiton created with the radiant command doesn’t apparently  
contain the radiant code. Is there a way to freeze it to the gems used  
like for rails applications? (I saw in environment.rb that the gem  
used is referenced) I didn’t see it in the rake tasks available.

- a related question: Will there be attention paid to upgrade  
procedures to future versions? I’d like to follow the latest release,  
but won’t be able to afford long downtimes.

- Having all templates and layouts in the database is not the most  
user friendly to edit. Only for my tests I have lost time because the  
‘Save and continue editing’ looses the position of my cursor when the  
page reload. Is there a way to store layouts in files? An “ajax” way  
of saving the changes when editing in the browser would be a  
workaround. I would still prefer templates in files (that way, if you  
want to change the design, you can do it in development on all layouts  
to be changed, and have it all transfered at once, to the production  
server. In this case I find it much easier to sync files and  
directories than DBs)

- If I want to let people register on the site, what’s the best way to  
do it? Add a controller in the radiant installation? Run an additional  
rails app to just handle this?

Thanks in advance for your help.

Raph

–  
Web database: [http://www.myowndb.com](http://www.myowndb.com)  
Free Software Developers Meeting: [http://www.fosdem.org](http://www.fosdem.org)

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**Author:** ![raphael\_b](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/7c8e57/32.png) [@raphael\_b](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/raphael_b)\
**Post date:** [March 8, 2007, 12:04pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/new-user-questions/88125/2 "2007-03-08T12:04:32Z")

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On 3/8/07, Raphael B. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote:

> - an applicaiton created with the radiant command doesn’t apparently  
> contain the radiant code. Is there a way to freeze it to the gems used  
> like for rails applications?

I’m using the SVN checkout. It is self-contained.

- a related question: Will there be attention paid to upgrade

> procedures to future versions? I’d like to follow the latest release,  
> but won’t be able to afford long downtimes.

Upgrade procedures should be painless thanks to Rails migrations.

Is there a way to store layouts in files?

No. It would pretty complicated I guess

An “ajax” way

> of saving the changes when editing in the browser would be a  
> workaround.

Yeah, much better solution.

- If I want to let people register on the site, what’s the best way to

> do it? Add a controller in the radiant installation?

You should go with Radiant extensions

Run an additional rails app to just handle this?

Ugh - no 🙂

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**Author:** ![raphael\_b](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/7c8e57/32.png) [@raphael\_b](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/raphael_b)\
**Post date:** [March 8, 2007, 4:39pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/new-user-questions/88125/3 "2007-03-08T16:39:20Z")

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Raphael B. wrote:

> - an applicaiton created with the radiant command doesn’t apparently  
> contain the radiant code. Is there a way to freeze it to the gems used  
> like for rails applications? (I saw in environment.rb that the gem  
> used is referenced) I didn’t see it in the rake tasks available.

With 0.6rc1 the easiest way to do this is to extract the gem into the  
vendor/radiant directory, or to check radiant out using subversion into  
your vendor/radiant directory. (I like to use SVN externals to simplify  
this.)

There is now a series rake tasks in the repository to make this a little  
easier:

$ rake radiant:freeze:gems

~ or ~

$ rake radiant:freeze:edge BRANCH=mental

> - a related question: Will there be attention paid to upgrade  
> procedures to future versions? I’d like to follow the latest release,  
> but won’t be able to afford long downtimes.

If you are using instance mode the upgrade procedure looks like this:

$ gem update radiant

Now edit config/environment.rb so that RADIANT\_GEM\_VERSION is set to the  
new version. Continue with:

$ cd /path/to/radiant/install  
$ rake radiant:update

The radiant:update rake tasks are new in the repository as of last  
night.

> - Having all templates and layouts in the database is not the most  
> user friendly to edit. Only for my tests I have lost time because the  
> ‘Save and continue editing’ looses the position of my cursor when the  
> page reload. Is there a way to store layouts in files? An “ajax” way  
> of saving the changes when editing in the browser would be a  
> workaround. I would still prefer templates in files (that way, if you  
> want to change the design, you can do it in development on all layouts  
> to be changed, and have it all transfered at once, to the production  
> server. In this case I find it much easier to sync files and  
> directories than DBs)

At the moment, templates must be stored in the DB. If you are looking  
for an easier way to edit layouts, I’d suggest the “Edit in Textmate”  
command (if you are a Textmate user or something similar if you use  
another editor).

I’d like to eventually add better export and import functionality to  
Radiant. This would certainly simplify what you are talking about.

> - If I want to let people register on the site, what’s the best way to  
> do it? Add a controller in the radiant installation? Run an additional  
> rails app to just handle this?

Create an extension with a custom controller.

–  
John L.  
[http://wiseheartdesign.com](http://wiseheartdesign.com)

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**Author:** ![raphael\_b](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/7c8e57/32.png) [@raphael\_b](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/raphael_b)\
**Post date:** [March 9, 2007, 3:40am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/new-user-questions/88125/4 "2007-03-09T03:40:54Z")

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On Mar 8, 2007, at 9:37 AM, John W. Long wrote:

> I’d suggest the “Edit in Textmate”  
> command (if you are a Textmate user or something similar if you use  
> another editor).

sorry john, I’m not following you. what?

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![raphael\_b](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/7c8e57/32.png) [@raphael\_b](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/raphael_b)\
**Post date:** [March 9, 2007, 3:55am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/new-user-questions/88125/5 "2007-03-09T03:55:56Z")

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David Minor wrote:

> On Mar 8, 2007, at 9:37 AM, John W. Long wrote:
> 
> > I’d suggest the “Edit in Textmate”  
> > command (if you are a Textmate user or something similar if you use  
> > another editor).
> 
> sorry john, I’m not following you. what?

TextMate has a feature which allows you to press a special hotkey that  
you can press when you are in a browser which allows you edit the text  
of the current textarea from within the TextMate editor. It’s great when  
you need to edit a complex stylesheet or layout.

–  
John L.  
[http://wiseheartdesign.com](http://wiseheartdesign.com)