Deploying ↑

Deploying a Strelka App ↑

Strelka uses the Rubygems plugin system to find and load applications. You don't need to necessarily package them up this way if you've already got a deployment strategy in mind, but the rest of this manual assumes you will be.

A Strelka app plugin:

These instructions use Hoe, but you don't need to necessarily use it.

Setting up the Project ↑

First you'll need to create the project layout. It should look something like this:

The data directory should contain your apps, templates, and any static content your app requires in a directory with the same name as your gem. Strelka's runtime environment will look for them there, though most of them can be configured to look elsewhere. The presence of an apps subdirectory is what Strelka looks for when searching for installed application gems.

The rest of the gem is pretty standard. Your applications' reusable code should be under lib/ and ext/ directories, and tests or specs under test/ and spec/, respectively.

Easy Setup with Hoe ↑

Hoe is a Rake helper that provides tasks for setting up and maintaining a project. It comes with a tool called 'sow' that generates a project based on a template directory. Strelka includes a Hoe project template in its contrib/hoetemplate directory. If you copy that directory into ~/.hoe_template:

$ sow  #(run once to set up the template directory if you don't have one)
$ cp -r contrib/hoetemplate ~/.hoe_template/strelka

You can generate a new project like so:

$ sow -s strelka GoodDoggie
erb: .autotest.erb
erb: History.rdoc.erb
erb: Manifest.txt.erb
erb: README.rdoc.erb
erb: Rakefile.erb
erb: data/good_doggie/apps/file_name_app
erb: data/good_doggie/templates/layout.tmpl.erb
erb: data/good_doggie/templates/top.tmpl.erb
erb: lib/file_name.rb.erb
erb: spec/file_name_spec.rb.erb

... done, now go fix all occurrences of 'FIX':

  GoodDoggie/data/good_doggie/apps/good_doggie_app:10:        ID = 'FIX' # (set the app id of the main application)
  GoodDoggie/data/good_doggie/templates/layout.tmpl:5:                        FIX (application title)
  GoodDoggie/data/good_doggie/templates/layout.tmpl:9:                <!-- FIX (set up the main layout template) -->
  GoodDoggie/data/good_doggie/templates/top.tmpl:1:<!-- FIX (set up the main content template) -->
  GoodDoggie/lib/good_doggie.rb:3:# FIX (top-level documentation)
  GoodDoggie/Rakefile:17:     self.developer 'FIX', 'FIX' # (name, email)
  GoodDoggie/README.rdoc:3:* FIX (url)
  GoodDoggie/README.rdoc:7:FIX (describe your package)
  GoodDoggie/README.rdoc:15:Copyright (c) 2011, FIX

Now just fix all the 'FIX' items.

Strelka looks for handler apps in the 'apps' subdirectory of your gem's datadir.

For example, in GoodDoggie/data/good_doggie/apps/good_doggie_app:

# The main GoodDoggie application
class GoodDoggie::Application < Strelka::App

      # Uncomment this if you need an appid other than 
      # 'gooddoggie-application'.
      #ID = 'FIX' # (set the app id of the main application)

The End