Recently i have had another go at tweaking RailsCollab, the pet project of mine (which i have mentioned previously).
After moving the source repository from Subversion to Git, i decided to add in a long standing missing feature – the web-based configuration editor.
Originally i pretty much stayed away from implementing this as Ruby on Rails was a real pain in the ass when it came to deployment, so i couldn’t implement a configuration loader that i knew would work in 90% of deployment cases.
That was, until recently when Phusion Passenger was released.
For those of you that don’t know, Passenger is an Apache module which allows you to simply drop in your Rails application and run it with practically zero configuration. It pretty much falls under the “it just works” category. I have no doubt that anyone using RailsCollab will prefer using Passenger to deploy. Consequently, i have been able to implement a rather nice configuration loader based on this assumption.
Which brings me to the demo. A short while back, my web host, DreamHost added Phusion Passenger support to their web servers. Factor everything together, and you have… the RailsCollab demo!
“But wait!” you ask, “how do i login?”. Well, using OpenID of course. As with my previous demo, you should be able to select the “Use OpenID” checkbox and type in your OpenID to login.
This will automagically register you with the system, adding you to the “OpenID” company and the “RailsCollab” project. Afterwards if you want, you can reset your password so you can login using a regular username & password, though personally i think typing in your OpenID is a better idea.
Note that your OpenID provider needs to support handing over identity fields in order for RailsCollab to correctly register you. MyOpenID is an example of a provider that supports this. Also note that if there is a user with a duplicate username or email in the system, registration will fail.
One more thing
The RailsCollab demo also supports the Basecamp API. This means that you can take any existing widget, program, or service that integrates with Basecamp and use it with RailsCollab. e.g. Avalanche, Freshbooks, or Cashboard
So what are you waiting for? Try the demo already!: :)
