h1. Plongo

Super simple CMS brick powered by Mongodb. The aim is to define in the view the way the administration interface will be in order to edit the page content. For now, that's more or less a proof of concept.

h2. Pre-requisities

Mongodb

h2. Installation

For now, only installation as a plugin is available.

script/plugin install git://github.com/did/plongo.git

Then, edit your database.yml and modify all your environments like this

development:
  adapter: sqlite3
  database: db/development.sqlite3
  pool: 5
  timeout: 5000
  mongodb:
    host: localhost
    database: _development

Create a file mongodb.rb and put it into the config/initializers folder

cfg = Rails.configuration.database_configuration[RAILS_ENV]['mongodb']
MongoMapper.connection = Mongo::Connection.new(cfg['host'])
MongoMapper.database = cfg['database']

Do not forget to update your config.rb file by adding reference to new gems

    config.gem 'mongo',        :source => 'http://gemcutter.org'
  config.gem 'mongo_ext',    :source => 'http://gemcutter.org', :lib => false
  config.gem 'mongo_mapper', :source => 'http://gemcutter.org', :version => '0.7.0'

Finally, generate back-office interface (for now, it is installed in admin/)

./script/generate plongo_admin

h2. How it works ?

A view template is considered as a page in plongo. So once you define a component inside such as a text, a new plongo page is created with default parameters based on the controller / action. Parameters may be overidden. Each page is unique thanks to its path (<controller>/<action>).

h2. Usage

Plongo comes with some useful view helpers.

h3. Simple text

<%= content_tag :h2, 'A title by default', :plongo => { :key => 'title', :name => 'Page title', :priority => 1 } %>

will display a h2 tag and the content will be editable thru a back-office interface (in progress)

_Note: priority gives the position of the element in the back-office interface.

<%= content_tag :div, 'Lorem ipsum....', :plongo => { :key => 'a_paragraph', :name => 'Main paragraph' } %>

h3. Image

<%= image_tag 'default url', :plongo_key => 'image', :alt => 'Article image', :size => '400x200' %>

will display an image uploaded thru a back-office interface. The uploaded image will also be cropped based on the size attribute.

h3. List of items

This is problably the most powerful in Plongo. It makes the edition of HTML list super easy. HTML list can be carousel, simple UL list, ...etc.

<% content_tag :ul, :plongo => { :key => 'features', :name => 'List of features', :highlight => 'title' } do %>
    

        <%= content_tag :h3, :plongo => { :key => 'title', :name => 'Title of the feature' } %>
        

            <%= image_tag 'default url', :plongo_key => 'screenshot', :alt => 'Screenshot of the feature', :size => '100x100' %>
        
        

            <%= plongo_content 'description', :text, :name => 'A description', :value => 'Lorem ipsum....' %>
        
    
<% end %>

The HTML content inside UL is the template for the list. Each item will have the same "layout" (title + image +text)

_note:The ':highlight' attribute defines the property displayed to represent the element in the back-office interface.

h3. Changing page attributes

In some cases, you may want to change page attributes.

<% plongo_page :name => 'Welcome page', :path => '/home' %>

h2. Tests / Bugs / Evolutions

The plugin is fully tests with rspec (unit / functional tests). Into the plugin folder, type

rake

You may find bugs, sure you will actually. If you have time to investigate and solve them, just apply the classic procedure (fork, fix, test and submit).

For evolutions, you're welcome to suggest your ideas. Contact me at didier at nocoffee dot fr.

Copyright (c) 2010 NoCoffee, released under the MIT license