Beginning Ruby on Rails E-Commerce: From Novice to Professional

Description

Beginning Ruby on Rails E-Commerce: From Novice to Professional is the first book of its kind to guide you through producing e-commerce applications with Rails, the stacked web framework taking the world by storm. The book dives right into the process of creating a production-level web application using agile methodologies and test-driven development combined with Rails best practices. You'll take advantage of the latest crop of Rails plug-ins and helpers that will radically improve your programming schedule. You'll also create a real application step-by-step, plus the book is driven by real-world cases throughout.

You will begin by learning how to install Rails and quickly create a product catalog interfaced with your choice of database technologies. Then you'll discover how to build modern, Ajax-powered shopping carts and add useful features like customer feedback modules. Next you'll learn how to integrate your application with open source packages like the Ferret full-text search engine, and how to interface with back-end electronic payment systems. You'll also learn how to make your application work flawlessly with existing production systems using web services, and then ultimately deploy and tune your application for production use.

CONTENTS:

CHAPTER 1 Project Setup and Proof of Concept
Introducing the Emporium Project
Installing the Software
Installing Ruby
Installing RubyGems
Installing Ruby on Rails
Installing MySQL
Installing the MySQL Driver
Introducing Scrum
Creating the Emporium Application
Creating the Skeleton Application
Creating the Emporium Database
Starting Emporium for the First Time
How Does Ruby on Rails Work?
Implementing the About Emporium User Story
Running the Generate Script
Modifying the Generated View
Creating the Layout
Modifying the Generated Controller
Summary

CHAPTER 2 Author Management
Using Test-Driven Development
Testing in Rails
Unit Testing
Functional Testing
Integration Testing
Creating the ActiveRecord Model
Using ActiveRecord Migrations
Running Unit Tests
Creating the Controller
Implementing the User Stories
Adding an Author
Listing Authors
Viewing an Author
Editing an Author
Deleting an Author
Adjusting the Flash Notifications
Summary

CHAPTER 3 Book Inventory Management
Getting the Requirements
Using Scaffolding
Implementing the Publisher Administration Interface
Updating the Schema with the Publishers Table
Generating Publisher Code with the Scaffolding Script
Completing the Add Publisher User Story
Completing the View Publisher User Story
Completing the Edit Publisher User Story
Implementing the Book Administration Interface
Updating the Schema with the Books Table
Creating the Book Model
ActiveRecord Mapping
Modifying the Generated Models
Cloning the Database
Unit Testing Validations
Unit Testing the ActiveRecord Mappings
Generating Book Administration Code with the Scaffolding Script
Integration Testing
Completing the Add Book User Story
Completing the Upload Book Cover User Story
Completing the List Books User Story
Completing the View Book User Story
Completing the Edit Book User Story
Testing the Delete Book User Story
Summary

CHAPTER 4 Book Catalog Browsing
Getting the Book Catalog Requirements
Implementing the Book Catalog Interface
Implementing the Browse Books User Story
Implementing the View Book Details User Story
Implementing the Search Books User Story
Implementing the Get Latest Books User Story
Creating an RSS Feed
Summary

CHAPTER 5 Shopping Cart Implementation
Getting the Shopping Cart Requirements
Setting Up the Shopping Cart
Creating the Controller
Adding a Functional Test
Creating the Models
Modifying the Controller
Creating the Views
Implementing the User Stories
Implementing the Add Items to the Cart User Story
Implementing the Remove Items from the Cart User Story
Implementing the Clear the Cart User Story
Summary

CHAPTER 6 Forum Implementation
Getting the Forum Requirements
Using the Threaded Forum Plugin
Setting Up the Forum
Updating the Database Schema
Modifying the Model
Unit Testing the Model
Generating the Controller and View
Implementing the User Stories
Implementing the Post to Forum User Story
Implementing the View Forum User Story
Implementing the View Post User Story
Implementing the Reply to Post User Story
Summary

CHAPTER 7 Tagging Support
Getting the Tagging Requirements
Using the Tagging RubyGem
Setting Up for Tagging
Updating the Database Schema
Preparing the Models
Unit Testing the Model
Using the Console to Test the Model
Implementing the User Stories
Implementing the Assign Tags User Story
Implementing the Edit Tags User Story
Implementing the List Tags and Show Tag User Stories
Implementing the Recommend Books User Story
Summary

CHAPTER 8 Security
Getting the Authentication Requirements
Using the Authentication Plugin
Implementing the User Stories
Implementing the Log In User Story
Implementing the Fail Log In User Story
Implementing the Reset Password User Story
Protecting Your Application
Cross-Site Scripting
URL and Form Manipulation
SQL Injection
Cross-Site Request Forgery
Summary

CHAPTER 9 Checkout and Order Processing
Getting the Checkout and Order-Processing Requirements
Implementing the Check Out User Story
Creating the Models
Adding Validations to the Model
Creating the Controller and Integration Test
Creating the View
Saving the Order Information
Integrating with Payment Gateways
Installing the Active Merchant Plugin
Integrating with PayPal
Integrating with Authorize.Net
Using the Payment Gem
Implementing the Administrator User Stories
Implementing the View Orders User Story
Implementing the View Order User Story
Implementing the Close Order User Story
Calculating Shipping Costs and Taxes
Using the Shipping Gem
Calculating Taxes
Summary

CHAPTER 10 Multiple Language Support
Getting the Localization Requirements
Using the Globalize Plugin
Localizing with Globalize
Setting Up Globalize
Implementing the User Stories
Implementing the Change Locale User Story
Implementing the Translation User Stories
Translating the View and the Book Model
Translating the View
Translating the Model
Localizing Dates, Numbers, and Currency
Localizing Dates
Localizing Numbers and Currencies
Adding Unicode (UTF-8) Support
Setting Character Encoding in HTML
Setting Character Encoding for the HTTP Response
Changing the Database to Use UTF-8
Summary

CHAPTER 11 Acceptance Testing
Using Selenium
Writing Selenium Tests
Selenium Commands
Selenium Test Formats
The First Acceptance Test
Recording Selenium Tests
Using the Selenium IDE
Recording the View Forum Acceptance Test
Recording the Post to Forum Acceptance Test
Recording the Show Post Acceptance Test
Recording the Reply to Post Acceptance Test
Summary

CHAPTER 12 Application Deployment
Setting Up the Production Environment
Connecting to the Production Server: SSH
Installing the Web Server: LightTPD
Installing the Application Server: Ruby on Rails and FastCGI
Installing the Database Server (MySQL)
Configuring LightTPD
Creating the Production Database
Deploying the Application Manually
Copying the Application
Creating Users and Groups
Starting LightTPD
Starting FastCGI Processes
Automating Deployment
Installing Capistrano
Creating the Capistrano Deployment Recipe
Running the Setup Task
Deploying to Production
Starting LightTPD
Summary

CHAPTER 13 Performance Optimization
Performance and Scaling
Measuring Performance
Checking the Log File
Using Rails Analyzer
Caching
Page Caching
Action Caching
Fragment Caching
Fragment Stores
Caching ActiveRecord Objects
Common Performance Problems in Rails
Rendering Speed
Database Access
Summary

INDEX