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Getting started with RYS

In this article you will learn what it is and how our new RYS plugin system works.

What is RYS?

We've introduced a new way of developing plugins for Easy8 and Redmine. It is almost the same as developing standard Rails gems based on the Rails engine system.

RYSes are used for isolated features and allow on-the-fly enabling/disabling of their features.

RYS consists of:

  • RYS (contains Feature toggler, patch management and generators)
  • RYSPEC (contains testing RYSes)
  • RYS management (contains RYS configuration and management).

Where to find RYSes?

Each RYS has its own repository and depending on the platform configuration can be changed and installed if needed. RYS always only changes backend functionality and its controllers.

Full documentation what RYSes, including source code can be found in github.

How RYS works?

It is important to understand how RYSes are built inside so let's look at the way they are structured. The overall structure is driven by what it does, whether it adds new functions or changes existing functionality.

In case of the RYS adds new functionality then their structure follows the common Rails architecture and adds new classes into lib folder.

In case of RYS changes or enhances functionality then the structure follows this logic:

  1. Into the patch folder go all alterations to existing files that affect any platform files.
  2. Following the same logic, if new RYS alters functionality of another RYS then new code files go in the patch folder and the subfolder of the changed RYS.

Each RYS should contain information about its author, version, short description about its functionality and under what license it can be used. All this is saved in its very own .gemspec file.

How to install RYS?

  1. As your first step you have to add to your gem file (Gemfile, gemfile.local, gems.rb,...)
git_source(:github) {|name| "https://github.com/#{name}.git" }
group :default, :rys do
  gem 'rys', github: 'easysoftware/rys', branch: 'master'
end
  1. Next install your gem file
  bundle install
  1. As a next step add additional
 rails generate rys:redmine:plugin NAME

This will generate a new Redmine plugin (plugins/NAME) contains basic plugins (rys-bundler, ryspec, ...) and generated skeleton for adding more ryses (plugins/NAME/Gemfile).

  1. And a last step is generate RYS with name NAME and follow instruction.
 rails generate rys:plugin NAME

And that is it. RYS platform is fully installed and ready to use.

RYS Builder

How to install RYS Builder?

If you want to download RYS Builder copy/symlink all rys dependencies into your project directory.

  1. First of all copy gems into plugins/easysoftware/gems
bundle exec rake easybundler:build
  1. Link gems into plugins/easysoftware/gems
bundle exec rake easybundler:build_local
  1. Revent gems from plugins/easysoftware/gems
bundle exec rake easybundler:revert
  1. Revent gems from plugins/easysoftware/local
bundle exec rake easybundler:revert_local

And that is all Now you call successfully use RYS Builder.

How to start developing with RYS? (Best practice one of our developers)

As a first step you will need Redmine or Easy8.

Because RYSes are designed for developing (Easy) Redmine plugins, you need to have it set up first.

Easy8 platform version 04.00 and up includes the rys gem.

Generate your engine

We have prepared a simple generator of RYS engines.

  1. Add the rys gem if not already included

  2. Run rails generator

rails generate rys:plugin NAME

Move generated code to work directory

All engines will have separate GIT repository. It's better to store engines outside of ER git repository.

Use --path generator option.

Dummy application

Rails 5 engines are best developed with a dummy application, which doesn't contain a lot of unnecessary code. In RubyMine you only need to open the RYS source, so its fast and easy.

So you take our devel repository, clone it as dummy and remove ALL unnecessary plugins. It can be found here

You symlink this dummy to test/dummy in the RYS engine.

Running tests

  1. Run
bundle install
  1. Make sure you have configured config/database.yml in your dummy.
  2. Run migration
app:db:create app:db:migrate
  1. Build Easy8
bundle exec rake app:easyproject:install
  1. Run rspec
rspec

Example of getting dummy app and running tests

  1. Get Easy8
git clone devel -b devel devel
  1. Setup Easy8 (database.yml)
bundle install --without rmagick xapian
  1. Generate RYS
rails g rys:plugin pink_unicorn --path ../
  1. Prepare dummy
git clone [email protected]:easyproject-client/dummy.git -b devel dummy
vim config/database.yml
  1. Link dummy to RYS
cd ../pink_unicorn
mkdir test
  1. test folder is in .gitignore by default
ln -s [~/projects/ or absolute path]dummy test/dummy
  1. Put it together
bundle install --without rmagick xapian
rake app:db:create app:db:migrate
rake app:easyproject:install # this work from ER 05.00
  1. Ready to use

RYS is ready. Open RubyMine and write some code! After that run rspec.

.*

Pending: (Failures listed here are expected and do not affect your suite's status)

  1) Model test Fail something
     # No reason given
     Failure/Error: expect(true).to eq false

       expected: false
            got: true

       (compared using ==)
     # ./spec/models/model_spec.rb:8:in `block (2 levels) in '

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2 examples, 0 failures, 1 pending