[ANN] Nitro + Og 0.40.0

Hello everyone,

New versions of Nitro (Web Application Framework) and Og (Object
Relational Mapping) were released:

Homepage: http://www.nitroproject.org
Download: http://rubyforge.org/projects/ nitro
Mailing List: http://rubyforge.org/mailman/l istinfo/nitro-general

This is the biggest release yet! Tons of new wonderful features, code
refactoring, bug fixes, documentation improvements and so much more.

Special thanks for this release fly to Jonas Pfeniger, Jonathan/Fabian
Buch and Michael Fellinger.

Most notable changes:

* Fully transparent Og managed objects. No need to use the special
property notation. Just use the standard attr_accessor macro:

  class User
    attr_accessor :name, String, :sql => 'VARCHAR(32)
    attr_accessor :password, String
    attr_accessor :age, :login_count, Fixnum

    belongs_to :group
    has_many :comments
    joins_many :categories
  end

  Og automatically detects and manages this class!

* The Og adapter model was re-engineered from scratch. The new adapter
code is better refactored. It is now extremely easy to write new
adapters for various RDBMS systems.

* Og build mode. This avoids multiple sql queries when you are
'building' (ie attaching related objects) a new object.

* You can now easily lookup Og entities by name:

  u = User[1] # classic

  or

  u = User['gmosx'] # this works as well!

  for the new method to work you need to annotate the attribute to use
for named lookups:

  class User
    attr_accessor :name, String, :key => true
    ..
  end

* Og set attribute, a nice helper to set only some attributes.

  b = Book[1]
  b.set_attribute :title => 'Hello' # updates only title in the DB
  b.instance_attribute_set '@title', 'Hello' # Ruby style
  b.set_attributes :title => '1', :hits => 3

* Much more intelligent dispatcher now handles nested controllers and
many 'edge' cases. For example:

  Server.map = {
    '/' => SiteController,
    '/users' => UserController,
    '/users/categories' => UserCategoryController,
    '/users/comments' => UserCommentController
    ...
  }

* Introduced the notion of Controls as extensions of the Elements
feature. The auto administration part was recoded to utilize the
Controls system. Ooh, and the admin screens now display validation
errors.

* Introduced Console/Script adapter. This is a new adapter that allows
you to programmatically send http requests to Nitro. You can send
GET/POST/etc request to any action you like with any request
parameters.

  This adapter is used in the console mode. You can access it through
the $app variable. You can also use this adapter to perform
sophisticated testing, our specialized  automation scripts.

* New and improved nitro command. Among many new features the new
command supports:

  * Easy setup of clusters:

    nitro --cluster 3

    if the default port is 9000 starts 3 instances of the application
    listening on 9000, 9001, 9002. This command is smart enough
    to also name the instances for easy identification when you
    give 'ps aux'.

    Useful for Mongrel/FastCGI deployment.

  * Automatic start of state servers. You need a 'state' server if tou
use Mongrel/Nitro to keep the distributed session and global variables
and any other common data you want to use.

* Output cache cleanup. Just start the console

  nitro console

  and give:

  $cache.cleanup


* More flexible elements namespace selection, you can easier
  have multiple skins in your web app, per controller, per
  controller group etc. A low level example:

  class MyController
    ann :self, :elements => CustomSkin
  end

* More flexible configuration system. See the updated examples for the details.

* Further improvements in the form builder. Among other things, it now
works better with flash parameters and handle errors.

* Greatly improved the Mongrel adapter. In fact nitro+mongrel running
behind apache is now the reference deployment method. We have removed
the unsupported SCGI adapter, please use Mongrel instead.

* The StaticInclude compiler now handles recursive includes.

* Brand new automatic administration part.The new implementation is
much simpler, elegant and easier to extend.

* Many more bug fixes and smaller improvements.



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.

have fun,
Nitro Team




-- 
http://gmosx.com/blog
http://nitroproject.org