Recent Project: "Aldo's Let's Dance" Fall Campaign

By the lack of blog posts this month, you might have guessed that I've been busy. You're right! I even failed to blog about a launch early this month. But here it is...

I had a great time working with Dynamo, located in the old port of Montreal, on Aldo's fall campaign, "Let's Dance". The concept is simple: upload a video of yourself dancing to Think About Life's Sweet Sixteen and let Internet groupies vote via Twitter, Facebook and/or YouTube. The entries have been fantastic, the traffic through the roof, and voter participate off the charts. It's definitely the most fun I have had all year. Check out the screen shots below and some technical details for those inclined, but better yet visit the site before 6th December to get the full experience before voting ends.

Thanks to Alex (Interactive Director), Jenna (Senior Designer) and Marie (Front-end Integrator) from Dynamo who made this such an enjoyable project to work on.

Home Page

Gallery

Video

Registration

Technical Details

"Let's Dance" is built using Ruby on Rails, tested with Cucumber and RSpec and deployed on Heroku. The application integrates several different services via Oauth: Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. By using Oauth we are able to track unique votes, as each vote is captured with the voters Oauth ID, but still allow visitors to share videos as many time as they wish.

Video uploads and approvals are managed using YouTube Direct and deployed on Google App Engine. While this saved development time, the open source application does not currently support Internationalization. It was possible to "hack" this in, but it was more time consuming than it should have been. Having said that, it was great to be able to off load all video processing and management to YouTube.

Deploying on Heroku is a huge help with the sudden influx of traffic. With campaign sites, there's no ramp up with traffic, so the application has to handle large amounts from day one. We monitor performance using NewRelic (on-demand application management), to ensure the application has the resources it needs for fast response times.

Need help with you Ruby on Rails application?

Please contact Nicholas Henry at Firsthand Web Design.

jQuery toggle issue on Safari, toggle shows, hides, but does not re-show

I was toggling a collection of nested HTML elements which was working fine in Firefox, but not in Safari. Even manipulating the display attribute using the console produced the same result. Even stranger, clicking outside of the element after a toggle made the element appear. After an hour or so trying to identify the issue, I left it to return later with a fresh mind. Before returning I had restarted my Mac. Yes, you guessed it. It was working. Have you come across this issue? Please let me know in the comments.

CarrierWave, an alternative to PaperClip for Uploading Files in Rails or Ruby Applications

I recently switched to CarrierWave: "Classier solution for file uploads in Ruby for Rack, Rails, Merb and Sinatra". Why? Here's three reasons:

1. Uploading logic/handling is extracted into a separate class. Hence the tag "Classier solution". It addresses my sensibility for Single Responsibility and separation of concerns.
2. It maintains a cache across redisplays. Meaning the user does not need to upload a file again, if other fields are invalid on the model.
3. Dead easy upload from a remote URL.

Definitley give it a try. Anything I have missed? Let me know in the comments.

Redmine Estimated Time Summary Plugin

Redmine doesn't provide any summaries/totals for time estimated on issues out-of-the-box. If this is what you need, I highly recommend redmine_estimated_summary plugin.

Rail's ActiveRecord: include vs join

Confused when to use the :include vs. :join option? Remember these points:

• join does not load the association into association
• include does, it loads each association into memory
• include is not compatible with select option
• use include when the association is referenced
• example use with join, doing a dynamic count on an association
• or when the association is not referenced

ActiveRecord::Base#becomes

An ActiveRecord method I did not existed: becomes.

Returns an instance of the specified klass with the attributes of the current record. This is mostly useful in relation to single-table inheritance structures where you want a subclass to appear as the superclass. This can be used along with record identification in Action Pack to allow, say, Client < Company to do something like render :partial => @client.becomes(Company) to render that instance using the companies/company partial instead of clients/client. Note: The new instance will share a link to the same attributes as the original class. So any change to the attributes in either instance will affect the other.

Web Integrator Application Hand-off Checklist

One scenario in developing applications, is the application is built and then handed off to a Web Integrator to implement the CSS. The other is templates are created and these are integrated by the web developer. This checklist is primary for the first scenario, but is probably applicable to the second. Here is a list of checks you should make before handing off for integration:

• Demo data: Can the web integrator easily add demo data to the application. This should be done via a script.
• Translation: If your application is multi-lingual, ensure all strings are in a locale file and the Web Integrator knows how to edit these. Spend some time teaching the Web Integrator on how it works.
• Test translations: Before an application is translated, run the application in the secondary language to make sure that all "strings" for that language are missing. Check especially for emails static pages and built-in error messages, labels and attributes.
• Language Switcher: Ensure a language switcher exists and is working.
• Emails: If your application sends emails, ensure the developer can send and preview these easily. This can be done with the a script to send emails and a preview option via http. Rather than your application send emails, use a email service provider.
• Minimize custom helpers: Helpers can be a roadblock for a Web Integrator not familiar with Rails. If you do use helpers, have the helper render a partial which can be easily customized.
• Test accounts: Most applications are not standalone these days. If your application connects with external services such as Twitter and Youtube, ensure test accounts have been setup and can easily be used. You want to encourage the Web Integrator to use these integrations as much as possible. It's a great way to catch bugs!
• Overlay option: Seen a web site without an overlay these days? Allow your Web Integrator to render a page without the entire layout easily. Passing a parameter along the URI is great way to do this.

Any thing I have missed? Please let me know in the comments.