cuba-contrib

Cuba is probably one of the tiniest rack-based micro frameworks around. Weighing in at only 138 LOC, it has proven itself to be a very resilient tool in various web application domains. Check the list of sites built using Cuba in order to grasp the endless possibilities.

STEP 1: Cuba::Prelude

Cuba does one thing, and it does it well. Cuba-contrib, on the other hand, layers requirement-specific functionality on top of it. This allows us to build simpler and lighter solutions.

To get started with Cuba::Contrib, install it using RubyGems:

$ gem install cuba          # if you haven't already done so
$ gem install cuba-contrib

For the remainder of the examples below, we'll assume you always put your main cuba application in app.rb and your views in views.

$ touch app.rb
$ mkdir views

Now you can require it in your application

require "cuba"
require "cuba/contrib"

Cuba.plugin Cuba::Prelude

Cuba::Prelude adds the basic stuff you'll need:

Cuba.define do
  on "about" do
    # same as encodeURIComponent in javascript land
    res.write urlencode("http://www.google.com")

    # basically an alias for Rack::Utils.escape_html
    res.write h("Cuba & Cuba Contrib")
  end
end

STEP 2: Choose your templating

Here comes a new challenger: Mote

We prefer to use our home-grown templating engine called Mote. We do that by simply loading the plugin Cuba::Mote:

require "cuba"
require "cuba/contrib"
require "mote"

Cuba.plugin Cuba::Mote

Cuba.define do
  on "home" do
    res.write view("home")
  end

  on "about" do
    res.write partial("about")
  end

  # Or you can use `render` as a shortcut to `res.write view(...)`.
  on "contact" do
    render("contact")
  end
end

This assumes that you have a views folder, containing a home.mote and an about.mote. Your layout defaults to layout.mote. You can render the inner content into the layout using the {{content}} tag, for example:

<html>
  <head>
    <title>Mote Layout</title>
  </head>
  <body>
    <h1>Hello, mote!</h1>
    {{ content }}
  </body>
</html>

Classic templating needs

Note: as of Cuba 3.0, the plugin architecture of cuba-contrib has been merged into the core codebase. The following example should work with Cuba 3.0 without even requiring cuba-contrib.

require "cuba"
require "cuba/render"

Cuba.plugin Cuba::Render
Cuba.settings[:render][:template_engine] = "haml"

Cuba.define do
  on "home" do
    res.write view("home") # renders views/home.haml
  end

  on "about" do
    res.write partial("about") # renders views/about.haml
  end
end

STEP 3: Make your own plugins

Authoring your own plugins is pretty straightforward.

require "bluecloth"

module MyOwnHelper
  def markdown(str)
    Markdown.new(str).to_html
  end
end

Cuba.plugin MyOwnHelper

that's the simplest kind of plugin you'll write. In fact, that's exactly how the markdown helper is written in Cuba::TextHelpers.

A more complicated plugin for example, will make use of Cuba.settings to provide default values:

module MarkdownView
  def self.setup(app)
    app.settings[:markdown_view] ||= {}
    app.settings[:markdown_view][:views] = "markdown"
  end

  def markdown_view(template)
    data = File.read("#{settings[:markdown_view][:views]}/#{template}.markdown")

    res.write Markdown.new(data).to_html
  end
end

Cuba.plugin MarkdownView

cuba-contrib

Development

Runtime

cuba-contrib

STEP 1: Cuba::Prelude

STEP 2: Choose your templating

Here comes a new challenger: Mote

Classic templating needs

STEP 3: Make your own plugins