From: George Moschovitis <george.moschovitis@...>
Date: 2005-10-28T16:55:13+09:00
Subject: [ANN] Nitro + Og 0.24.0, Annotations, KirbyBase, SCGI, Og Evolution, Gen, Dynamic CSS...

Dear devs,

new versions of Nitro and Og were just released!

homepage: http://www.nitrohq.com
download: http://rubyforge.org/projects/nitro/
mailing list: http://rubyforge.org/pipermail/nitro-general/

--

A snapshot of the latest developments. This version features
tons of big and small features and bug fixes that were
implemented during the last month. Special thanks fly to
Tom, Chris, Guill, Rob, Aleksi, and all others that sent
patches and code.

Most notable additions:


* Totaly recoded annotation / property system. The property
  system is now based on Facet annotations and inheritors.
  You can now annotate every object, attribute or method
  in Nitro. For example you can annotate your actions with
  routing rules or sitemap strings etc, etc. One unified
  system for annotations and metadata is used throughout
  the whole Framework.

  Here is an example:

  class A
    attr_accessor :val
    ann :val, :klass => String
    ann :self, :doc => 'Self annotation'
  end

  A.ann.val.class => String
  A.ann.self.doc =>

  if A.ann.val[:class]

  etc, etc...

* Implemented one of the most requested features. An Og
  frontend for KirbyBase. The KirbyBase store does not yet
  support all features, but is really useful. For example
  it can power the Spark wiki example. Switching between
  KirbyBase, Mysql, Postgres, Sqlite, etc by changing
  one line of code is really cool ;-)

* Better Seperation of Concerns for Og managed classes. Og
  can now annotate and handle classes from other libraries.
  Lets say you have the following class:

  class User
    attr_accessor :name
    attr_accessor :body
  end

  Using Ruby's open classes and Nitro's advanced annotation
  system you can easily prepare this class for Og management

  class User
    ann :user, :klass => String
    ann :body, :klass => String
  end

  or even better:

  class User
    property :user, String
    property :body, String
  end

  This style promotes SOC: You define your classes in one
  place and annotate them for Og in another place.

* Introduced a simple code generation framework. Two example
  generators are included:

  * app: generates the directory structure for a new
    nitro application.

  * form: generates an xhtml form for a Ruby class.
    This generator leverages the annotations of the
    object class.

* Improved scaffolding code and django style auto
  administration system. The new scaffolder supports all
  Og relation types and provides an intuitive DHTML
  interface for editing.

* SCGI (http://python.ca/nas/scgi/protocol.txt) support.
  Thanks to a refactoring of Nitro's cgi code this
  version integrates with Zed Shaw's SCGI adapter. This
  provides FastCGI's performance with an easy
  installation.

* Experimental HTTP streaming support. Here is a
  simple example:

  def index
    response.content_type = "text/plain"
    stream do
      5.times do |i|
        print "#{i}"*10000 + "\n"
        sleep 1
      end
    end
  end

* Simple Og automatic evolution system. Lets say you have a class Article

  class Article
    property :title, String
    property :nbody, String
    property :dumy, Fixnum
  end

  lets you want to change your
  class to this one:

  class NewArticle
    property :ntitle, String
    property :nbody, String
    property :new, Float
  end

  First you export the database:

  og.export

  Then you import the database. Some rules
  are needed when renaming classes or properties.
  New properties or deleted properties are handled
  automatically.

  rules = {
    :Article => {
      :self => :NewArticle, # rename the class
      :title => :ntitle,
      :body => :nbody
    }
  }
  og.import :evolution => rules

  Thats all. In a future version this will be integrated into
  the default runner scripts.

* Og helpers to create simple rdbms management scripts. Here
  is an example:

  mysql "-u root -p", <<-END
    drop database if exists weblog_development;
    create database weblog_development;
    grant all on weblog_development.* to #{`id -un`.strip}@localhost;
  END

  At the moment this is only available for Mysql.

* Added support for dynamic CSS using Nitro's advanced templating
  system. Create the dynamic CSS file with an .csst extension in
  your template root.

  <?r
  green = '#79b500'
  background = '#fff'
  ?>

 .page {
    background: #{green}

    <?r 10.times do ?>
      padding: 5px;
    <?r end ?>

    // or even

    <% 3.times do %>
      margin: 5px;
    <% end %>
  }
  ..

  then, add this line in run.rb:

  Compiler.precompile 'style.css'

  The CSS file will be regenerated automatically whenever the
  template changes...

* Updated to support latest Prototype, Scriptaculous etc.

* Cleaned up Og implementation.

* Fixed minor Ruby 1.8.3 compatibility issues.

* Even better integration with Ruby Facets.

* Tons of bug fixes and small but useful features.

--

Nitro provides everything you need to develop professional Web
applications using Ruby and Javascript.

Nitro redefines Rapid Application Development by providing a
clean, yet efficient API, a layer of domain specific languages
implemented on top of Ruby and the most powerful and elegant
object relational mapping solution available everywhere.

Nitro is Web 2.0 ready, featuring excellent support for AJAX,
XML, Syndication while staying standards compliant.

Og (ObjectGraph) is a powerful and elegant object-relational mapping
library. Og manages the lifecycle of Ruby objects and  provides
transparent serialization of object graphs to stores (typically
RDBM systems).

--

enjoy,
George Moschovitis


--
http://www.nitrohq.com
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