Rails - Apr 2006 - Multiple sites sharing a single application

Quick question:

Say i have a few shopping sites that i want to run on the same 
application code but have seperate databases and layout/design, what 
would be the neatest ''Rails'' way of doing this?

Cheers,

Steve

Stephen Bartholomew wrote:
> Quick question:
> 
> Say i have a few shopping sites that i want to run on the same 
> application code but have seperate databases and layout/design, what 
> would be the neatest ''Rails'' way of doing this?
> 
The *Rails* way would be to not have different databases... but access 
specific data within scope. The reason behind this is that its much 
easier to maintain one database schema than multiple ones and trying to 
keep those in sync with each other... especially if one instance of the 
application is doing all the heavy lifting.

-Robby

Stephen Bartholomew wrote:
> Quick question:
> 
> Say i have a few shopping sites that i want to run on the same
> application code but have seperate databases and layout/design, what
> would be the neatest ''Rails'' way of doing this?
> 
> Cheers,
> 
> Steve
Sounds a little like a job for SVN branches. You could keep your models 
in the trunk and branch the controllers and views, or at least just the 
views. This would be a quick and dirty way to implement a quick
"themes"
system for your application.

As far as running entirely separate instances of the application, I 
would suggest using several databases. If they''re not truly the
"same"
application, then keeping all that data together and adding some sort of 
scope is just going to complicate things. Other than their base 
software, these different sites are really separate, so make it easy on 
yourself and deploy it that way.

-- 
Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/.

I think that makes more sense.  This would allow for the sites to 
''split'' from the common application if one site needed to add
additional
bespoke componants.  The main reason for maintaining the core codebase 
was for code management - i just wouldn''t want to have to bug fix
across
3 different places.

Cheers,

Steve

Bryan Duxbury wrote:
> Stephen Bartholomew wrote:
> 
>>Quick question:
>>
>>Say i have a few shopping sites that i want to run on the same
>>application code but have seperate databases and layout/design, what
>>would be the neatest ''Rails'' way of doing this?
>>
>>Cheers,
>>
>>Steve
> 
> 
> Sounds a little like a job for SVN branches. You could keep your models 
> in the trunk and branch the controllers and views, or at least just the 
> views. This would be a quick and dirty way to implement a quick
"themes"
> system for your application.
> 
> As far as running entirely separate instances of the application, I 
> would suggest using several databases. If they''re not truly the
"same"
> application, then keeping all that data together and adding some sort of 
> scope is just going to complicate things. Other than their base 
> software, these different sites are really separate, so make it easy on 
> yourself and deploy it that way.
>

Bryan Duxbury wrote:
> Stephen Bartholomew wrote:
>> Quick question:
>> 
>> Say i have a few shopping sites that i want to run on the same
>> application code but have seperate databases and layout/design, what
>> would be the neatest ''Rails'' way of doing this?
>> 
>> Cheers,
>> 
>> Steve
> 
> Sounds a little like a job for SVN branches. You could keep your models 
> in the trunk and branch the controllers and views, or at least just the 
> views. This would be a quick and dirty way to implement a quick
"themes"
> system for your application.
> 
There is also the svn:externals 
(http://svnbook.red-bean.com/en/1.0/ch07s03.html) solution :
A. create an application framework without the modified parts (probably 
CSS, config and views)
B. checkout this app for each site
C. set an svn:external on each of these directories to point to the code 
for each specific site. Example:
# svn propset svn:externals ''app/views''
"svn://example.com/site1/views"
"views"
D. svn up will update code in both app and site specific code. svn 
status will tell you to do svn ci into ''views'' if needed.

-- 
Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/.