Hi, joakim,
java tag libraries - as you''ll know - are shortcuts to classes that
render markup. If I define e.g. a tag named myTag and initialise it in a
tld-File with it''s reference to the class my.namespace.MyTag which
renders something like
<ul>
<li>my list</li>
</ul>
then a simple reference like <mytl:myTag> will get the output of the
rendering class and replace my directive with the rendered markup (here
html but might as well be wml, xml et. al.), right?
IMHO (being a n00b myself) the rails equivalent to functionality like
this are helpers (and components). In helpers you''ll define methods
that
render html and may be placed in your templates. Things aren''t very
different. The learning curve for tld-Development is definitly steeper
than developing helpers in rails. My approach to your problem therefore
would be:
1. Researching if there are any native ruby libraries that provide
functionality like wurfl
2. Researching what the wurfl project already provides for ruby
3. Rebuilding the WALL tld in rails helpers (probably quite a task): Is
WALL open source? Then you would start at the tld-File, introspecting
the Rendering-Classes that are referenced in the tld and build
equivalent helpers in rails.
As a first step you might make yourself familiar with the rails
rendering kit. Keywords are Templates, Partials, Helpers, Components
YMMV
Jan
Joakim Westin wrote:
>Hi!
>
>I''m a newcommer to Ruby and Rails. I''ve just got the
environment done on
>my Mac OS X machine and I am eager to start to learn more!
>
>It seems as such a great plattform for doing webapplications.
>
>I have a specific task I would like to acomplish but being a newbie with
>Rails and Ruby am not sure where to start.
>
>
>What I want to do is to create a mobile site that is very goood at
>detecting which device is used for accessing the web application and
>then adjust the pages accroding to the devices capabilities.
>
>Fortunately WURFL (http://wurfl.sourceforge.net/) is excellent at
>identifying the various devices. For the Java world there is a tag
>library (WALL - http://wurfl.sourceforge.net/java/index.php) that
>implements a JSP tag library on top of WURFL - this makes it very easy
>to develop web applications that behave cleverly with the different
>devices out there. It handles WAP phones, XHTML browser and more.
>
>The WURFL project has sometools and examples in Ruby
>
>- http://wurfl.sourceforge.net/ruby/index.php.
>
>My problems is that as a newbie to both Ruby and Rails i do not know
>where to start? Is there something similar to JSP TAG libs? If not, can
>you ecommend better approaches?
>
>What I would like to do is to get the same ease-of-programming as if
>using the WALL JSP taglibs in a Java environmet.
>
>Could anyone here help me plot a course for how to go about this?
>
>Cheers,
>joakim
>?kersberga
>Sweden
>
>
>