By Keil Miller Jr

badges is a Ruby gem that allows you to connect to different API's to retrieve your earned badges and profile information.

Add this line to your application's Gemfile:

gem 'badges'

And then execute:

$ bundle

Or install it yourself as:

$ gem install badges

• Ruby 1.9.3 or higher
• activesupport
• httparty
• markaby

Both Badges::CodeSchool and Badges::Treehouse are a subclass of Request. Because of this, they share the same methods and variables, and function in exactly the same way. Examples following the first will be considerably shorter.

Create a new instance of a CodeSchool badge request.

codeschool = Badges::CodeSchool.new('username')

Badges gem knows the proper url for the request. If the base url for the request happens to change one day, you can optionally pass in a different base url and the gem will use that instead.

codeschool = Badges::CodeSchool.new('username', 'http://www.codeschool.com/users/')

CodeSchool is a subclass of Request, so it inherits these useful methods and variables pertaining to your api request.

codeschool.user_id
=> "user"

codeschool.profile_url
=> "http://www.codeschool.com/users/username"

codeschool.valid?
=> true

codeschool.code
=> 200

codeschool.message
=> "OK"

Any error in the request will yield a message in the console or log.

Retrieved JSON is stored as a plain Ruby object inside the variable codeschool.body. Here's an example of proper usage:

codeschool.body.user.avatar
=> "http://example.com/avatar.jpg"

codeschool.body.courses.completed.count
=> 11

codeschool.body.courses.completed[0].title
=> "Rails for Zombies"

You can view all the attributes of the JSON request online in a nice tree view gui by using the Json Editor Online.

treehouse = Badges::Treehouse.new('username')

Create a new instance of a badge request in the controller.

class BadgesController < ApplicationController
  def index
    @codeschool = Badges::CodeSchool.new('keilmillerjr')
    @treehouse = Badges::Treehouse.new('keilmillerjr')
  end
end

Inside your view, use the list_badges view helper to create a list of badges. Params left out are assumed to be false. You can also use class methods and variables inside the view.

<h1>Badges#index</h1>
<p>Find me in app/views/badges/index.html.erb</p>

<%= image_tag @codeschool.body.user.avatar %>
<%= list_badges @codeschool, codeschool_badges: {image: true, link: true, text: true}, id: 'codeschool_badges', class: 'badges' %>
<%= list_badges @codeschool, codeschool_courses_completed: {image: true, link: true, text: true}, id: 'codeschool_courses_completed', class: 'badges' %>
<%= list_badges @codeschool, codeschool_courses_in_progress: {image: true, link: true, text: true}, id: 'codeschool_courses_in_progress', class: 'badges' %>

<%= image_tag @treehouse.body.gravatar_url %>
<%= list_badges @treehouse, treehouse_badges: {image: true, link: true, text: true}, id: 'treehouse_badges', class: 'badges' %>

Tip: Use css/sass afterwards to style this list appropriately.

list_badges will render nothing if there is an error in the request. Check the console or log for an error message.

1. Fork it
2. Create your feature branch (git checkout -b my-new-feature)
3. Commit your changes (git commit -am 'Add some feature')
4. Push to the branch (git push origin my-new-feature)
5. Create new Pull Request