Rails - Jan 2006 - Acts_as_authenticated

Hello
I have been trying a number of security/login generators recently.  My 
favourite so far is the Acts_as_authenticated. I like the fact that it 
is only billed as a starting point and doesn''t try to do everything.

I would like to add security roles to it, so that some of my controller 
actions can only be used by an admin role.  Has anybody implemented this 
using acts_as_authenticated as a starting point?  If so, would you mind 
letting me have a look at some code?

Any help would be much appreciated as I am a newbie.
Regards
Harvey

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

Hello,
I wanted to put out a message to the rails list to see who else might be
interested in setting up a rails rich-client framework.  I am working on a
Swing project with spring-rich (not my choice) but it occurred to me that
the motivations behind going with spring-rich as a technology have already
been solved by the rails API.
Some background on spring-rich, it basically takes the pluggable framework
"spring" and extends it to developing Swing (rich-client) desktop
applications.  Some of the things the spring-rich framework brings to the
table are:
1. IoC (Inversion of Control) containers (ala Struts or its own
implementation)
2. Data binding using whatever model you choose.  For example the data
binding framework could enable you to select an item in a grid control and
which will fire a "rowSelected" type of event that will populate the
text
fields (or wotever fields) on a detail form.
3.  Business oriented events and hooks that allow you to implement things
like security, login, printing, and hooks to frameworks like reporting
systems (ala Jasper reports).
In short it allows you to build desktop application with all of the widgets
and speed that would bring to build data-bound, report-enabled applications
without dealing with all of the plumbing behind it.

It occurred to me that Rails does these same things but does not have a
desktop (native) GUI library that it can bind to, and I suppose nor should
it really.  However I think such a project would be a serious contender (if
not killer) of frameworks such as spring rich because of all the XML
configuration and jar file hell that is part of the motivation behind using
rails in the first place for web applications.

It seems that a project like this could accomplish the following:
* Provide an abstract means to bind to one or more native GUI tookits
* Provide a data binding mechanism to link controllers to GUI events and
link model objects to fields and GUI widgets.
* Provide a stub to one or more reporting engines that would allow one to
send models from the GUI context to report templates.
* Provide a client-specific plugin capabilities that would allow people to
implement plugins to solve domain specific problems such as login and
authentication.
* Integration with a  deployment strategy such as JNLP or some native
installation mechanism (i.e. Super-pimp installer).

Future or related projects could include designers such as GUI designers and
report designers and GUI component libraries.

I know this is a long list but many feel that web applications are simply
not fast enough or powerful enough to solve certain problems that native
application features could provide.  I think that although it may sound like
re-implementing VB in RoR I think that the problem domain holds and the
problems associated therein will remain.  If nothing else, let''s help
those
out who have to deal with frameworks like spring-rich.

This is an initial poll to rally interest and see how many like-minded souls
are out there.  Please advise.

Best Regards,
Joe Graham
Josgraha [at] gmail [dot] com

I guess you could put XUL on top of Rails and you would get something pretty
close to what you''re describing.

On 31/01/06, Joseph Graham <jgraham@majikoz.com>
wrote:
>
> Hello,
> I wanted to put out a message to the rails list to see who else might be
> interested in setting up a rails rich-client framework.  I am working on a
> Swing project with spring-rich (not my choice) but it occurred to me that
> the motivations behind going with spring-rich as a technology have already
> been solved by the rails API.
> Some background on spring-rich, it basically takes the pluggable framework
> "spring" and extends it to developing Swing (rich-client) desktop
> applications.  Some of the things the spring-rich framework brings to the
> table are:
> 1. IoC (Inversion of Control) containers (ala Struts or its own
> implementation)
> 2. Data binding using whatever model you choose.  For example the data
> binding framework could enable you to select an item in a grid control and
> which will fire a "rowSelected" type of event that will populate
the text
> fields (or wotever fields) on a detail form.
> 3.  Business oriented events and hooks that allow you to implement things
> like security, login, printing, and hooks to frameworks like reporting
> systems (ala Jasper reports).
> In short it allows you to build desktop application with all of the
> widgets
> and speed that would bring to build data-bound, report-enabled
> applications
> without dealing with all of the plumbing behind it.
>
> It occurred to me that Rails does these same things but does not have a
> desktop (native) GUI library that it can bind to, and I suppose nor should
> it really.  However I think such a project would be a serious contender
> (if
> not killer) of frameworks such as spring rich because of all the XML
> configuration and jar file hell that is part of the motivation behind
> using
> rails in the first place for web applications.
>
> It seems that a project like this could accomplish the following:
> * Provide an abstract means to bind to one or more native GUI tookits
> * Provide a data binding mechanism to link controllers to GUI events and
> link model objects to fields and GUI widgets.
> * Provide a stub to one or more reporting engines that would allow one to
> send models from the GUI context to report templates.
> * Provide a client-specific plugin capabilities that would allow people to
> implement plugins to solve domain specific problems such as login and
> authentication.
> * Integration with a  deployment strategy such as JNLP or some native
> installation mechanism (i.e. Super-pimp installer).
>
> Future or related projects could include designers such as GUI designers
> and
> report designers and GUI component libraries.
>
> I know this is a long list but many feel that web applications are simply
> not fast enough or powerful enough to solve certain problems that native
> application features could provide.  I think that although it may sound
> like
> re-implementing VB in RoR I think that the problem domain holds and the
> problems associated therein will remain.  If nothing else, let''s
help
> those
> out who have to deal with frameworks like spring-rich.
>
> This is an initial poll to rally interest and see how many like-minded
> souls
> are out there.  Please advise.
>
> Best Regards,
> Joe Graham
> Josgraha [at] gmail [dot] com
>
> _______________________________________________
> Rails mailing list
> Rails@lists.rubyonrails.org
> http://lists.rubyonrails.org/mailman/listinfo/rails
>
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One easy way to do sort of what you''re describing with rails as-is is
to use firefox in fullscreen mode with no toolbars.  Running on
localhost rails is very fast, and if you design your app this way you
get web access and portability for free.  I''m doing a project like
this right now.  All it does is load up webrick (hoping for a faster
option soon) and start a customized browser.

Carl

On 1/31/06, Joseph Graham <jgraham@majikoz.com>
wrote:
> Hello,
> I wanted to put out a message to the rails list to see who else might be
> interested in setting up a rails rich-client framework.  I am working on a
> Swing project with spring-rich (not my choice) but it occurred to me that
> the motivations behind going with spring-rich as a technology have already
> been solved by the rails API.
> Some background on spring-rich, it basically takes the pluggable framework
> "spring" and extends it to developing Swing (rich-client) desktop
> applications.  Some of the things the spring-rich framework brings to the
> table are:
> 1. IoC (Inversion of Control) containers (ala Struts or its own
> implementation)
> 2. Data binding using whatever model you choose.  For example the data
> binding framework could enable you to select an item in a grid control and
> which will fire a "rowSelected" type of event that will populate
the text
> fields (or wotever fields) on a detail form.
> 3.  Business oriented events and hooks that allow you to implement things
> like security, login, printing, and hooks to frameworks like reporting
> systems (ala Jasper reports).
> In short it allows you to build desktop application with all of the widgets
> and speed that would bring to build data-bound, report-enabled applications
> without dealing with all of the plumbing behind it.
>
> It occurred to me that Rails does these same things but does not have a
> desktop (native) GUI library that it can bind to, and I suppose nor should
> it really.  However I think such a project would be a serious contender (if
> not killer) of frameworks such as spring rich because of all the XML
> configuration and jar file hell that is part of the motivation behind using
> rails in the first place for web applications.
>
> It seems that a project like this could accomplish the following:
> * Provide an abstract means to bind to one or more native GUI tookits
> * Provide a data binding mechanism to link controllers to GUI events and
> link model objects to fields and GUI widgets.
> * Provide a stub to one or more reporting engines that would allow one to
> send models from the GUI context to report templates.
> * Provide a client-specific plugin capabilities that would allow people to
> implement plugins to solve domain specific problems such as login and
> authentication.
> * Integration with a  deployment strategy such as JNLP or some native
> installation mechanism (i.e. Super-pimp installer).
>
> Future or related projects could include designers such as GUI designers
and
> report designers and GUI component libraries.
>
> I know this is a long list but many feel that web applications are simply
> not fast enough or powerful enough to solve certain problems that native
> application features could provide.  I think that although it may sound
like
> re-implementing VB in RoR I think that the problem domain holds and the
> problems associated therein will remain.  If nothing else, let''s
help those
> out who have to deal with frameworks like spring-rich.
>
> This is an initial poll to rally interest and see how many like-minded
souls
> are out there.  Please advise.

On Jan 31, 2006, at 11:39 AM, Harvey Bernstein wrote:
>
> Hello
> I have been trying a number of security/login generators recently.  My
> favourite so far is the Acts_as_authenticated. I like the fact that it
> is only billed as a starting point and doesn''t try to do
everything.
>
> I would like to add security roles to it, so that some of my  
> controller
> actions can only be used by an admin role.  Has anybody implemented  
> this
> using acts_as_authenticated as a starting point?  If so, would you  
> mind
> letting me have a look at some code?
>
> Any help would be much appreciated as I am a newbie.
> Regards
> Harvey
>

Harvey-

	I added acts_as_tree to the acts_as_authenticated user model. Then I  
add a role column to the user database table as well as the parent_id  
column required by acts_as_tree. This allows me to have a user system  
with roles that inherit from each other.

	What I mean is that the user role systems is a tree. So the main  
root superuser that you first create is the ''root'' user or
main
admin. You can then create, say sub admins under the root user and  
moderator users under the root user. Then normal users go underneath  
the subadmin or moderator, however you want to refer to it. This ends  
up being pretty easy to implement. If you are interested contact me  
off list and I can send you parts of the app. It''s an employee review  
system for the newspaper I work for. So the publisher is the head of  
all. And then there are directors under him and managers under  
directors and employees under managers. This way no one can see back  
up the tree. Each user in the tree can only edit and view users or  
content created by themselves or users underneath them in the tree.

	So here is the schema for the user table to use with  
acts_as_authenticated:

   create_table "users", :force => true do |t|
     t.column "login", :integer, :limit => 6
     t.column "email", :string, :limit => 100
     t.column "crypted_password", :string, :limit => 40
     t.column "salt", :string, :limit => 40
     t.column "activation_code", :string, :limit => 40
     t.column "activated_at", :datetime
     t.column "created_at", :datetime
     t.column "updated_at", :datetime
     t.column "active", :boolean, :default => false
     t.column "role", :string, :limit => 20
     t.column "parent_id", :integer
     t.column "first_name", :string, :limit => 30
     t.column "last_name", :string, :limit => 30
     t.column "users_count", :integer, :default => 0, :null =>
false
   end

	Then i add acts_as_tree and any relations to the user model:

class User < ActiveRecord::Base
   has_many :reviews
   acts_as_tree :order => "role", :counter_cache => true
   #......
end

	Then I use /user/signup only for the first root user. After that, a  
user with rights to create subusers has to use the add_user action:

# in user_controller.rb or account_controller.rb or whatever you  
named your user controller.
   def add_user
     return unless request.post?
     @parent = User.find(session[:user_id])
     if @parent.children.create(params[:user])
       redirect_back_or_default :controller => ''dashboard'',
:action
=> @parent.role.downcase
       flash[:notice] = "Thanks for signing up!"
     end
   end

	Notice that I redirect back to :controller => ''dashboard'',
:action
=> @parent.role.downcase. The dashboard is where you manage users  
beneath you. and the @parent.role.downcase is the name of an action  
in the dashboard_controller that matches the role of the user. So if  
the @parent.role is ''Publisher'', they will be redirected to / 
dashboard/publisher. This scheme works out great for me and is pretty  
simple to set up and customize. Its not the best if you need to have  
a ton of roles but for less then 5-10 roles this works great.

	Here is a helper method that will print out nested unordered lists  
of all the users underneath your user in the tree and link to them or  
whatever:

module ApplicationHelper
   def find_all_children(parent)
     if parent.children.size > 0
       ret = ''<ul>''
       parent.children.each { |child|
         if child.children.size > 0
           ret += ''<li>''
           ret += link_to "#{child.role}: #{child.last_name}, # 
{child.first_name} : #{child.login}",
                          :controller => ''review'', :action
=>
''boss_view'', :id => child
           ret += find_all_children(child)
           ret += ''</li>''
         else
           ret += ''<li>''
           ret += link_to "#{child.role}: #{child.last_name}, # 
{child.first_name} : #{child.login}",
                          :controller => ''review'', :action
=>
''boss_view'', :id => child
           ret += ''</li>''
         end
         }
       ret += ''</ul>''
     end
   end
end

	Keep in mind that this is a recursive method. If you don''t set up  
the counter_cache correctly in your user model it will issue a ton of  
COUNT sql statements while it goes down the list of children users.  
So make sure to set up a counter cache in the user model. The model  
and schema above have this set up for you. Let me know how it goes. I  
am thinking of adding this as an add on the the acts_as_authenticated  
but its actually very little code so I may just keep it simple. Its a  
bit app specific because of the roles and whatever your app needs so  
keep that in mind.

Cheers-
-Ezra Zygmuntowicz
Yakima Herald-Republic
WebMaster
http://yakimaherald.com
509-577-7732
ezra@yakima-herald.com

Agreed on the Firefox point.

I completed a project about a month ago using this technique.  Rails 
with full-screen Firefox on Tablet PCs for the interface with DRb calls 
to a central server as necessary.  Rails-to-Rails web services might 
have been a better option for the Tablet-to-Server communications in 
hindsight, but it worked fine.  Out-of-the-box Firefox with AutoHide 
launching on boot-up.  Couldn''t have been more simple.

  -Brasten

Carl Youngblood wrote:
> One easy way to do sort of what you''re describing with rails as-is
is
> to use firefox in fullscreen mode with no toolbars.  Running on
> localhost rails is very fast, and if you design your app this way you
> get web access and portability for free.  I''m doing a project like
> this right now.  All it does is load up webrick (hoping for a faster
> option soon) and start a customized browser.
>
> Carl
>
> On 1/31/06, Joseph Graham <jgraham@majikoz.com> wrote:
>   
>> Hello,
>> I wanted to put out a message to the rails list to see who else might
be
>> interested in setting up a rails rich-client framework.  I am working
on a
>> Swing project with spring-rich (not my choice) but it occurred to me
that
>> the motivations behind going with spring-rich as a technology have
already
>> been solved by the rails API.
>> Some background on spring-rich, it basically takes the pluggable
framework
>> "spring" and extends it to developing Swing (rich-client)
desktop
>> applications.  Some of the things the spring-rich framework brings to
the
>> table are:
>> 1. IoC (Inversion of Control) containers (ala Struts or its own
>> implementation)
>> 2. Data binding using whatever model you choose.  For example the data
>> binding framework could enable you to select an item in a grid control
and
>> which will fire a "rowSelected" type of event that will
populate the text
>> fields (or wotever fields) on a detail form.
>> 3.  Business oriented events and hooks that allow you to implement
things
>> like security, login, printing, and hooks to frameworks like reporting
>> systems (ala Jasper reports).
>> In short it allows you to build desktop application with all of the
widgets
>> and speed that would bring to build data-bound, report-enabled
applications
>> without dealing with all of the plumbing behind it.
>>
>> It occurred to me that Rails does these same things but does not have a
>> desktop (native) GUI library that it can bind to, and I suppose nor
should
>> it really.  However I think such a project would be a serious contender
(if
>> not killer) of frameworks such as spring rich because of all the XML
>> configuration and jar file hell that is part of the motivation behind
using
>> rails in the first place for web applications.
>>
>> It seems that a project like this could accomplish the following:
>> * Provide an abstract means to bind to one or more native GUI tookits
>> * Provide a data binding mechanism to link controllers to GUI events
and
>> link model objects to fields and GUI widgets.
>> * Provide a stub to one or more reporting engines that would allow one
to
>> send models from the GUI context to report templates.
>> * Provide a client-specific plugin capabilities that would allow people
to
>> implement plugins to solve domain specific problems such as login and
>> authentication.
>> * Integration with a  deployment strategy such as JNLP or some native
>> installation mechanism (i.e. Super-pimp installer).
>>
>> Future or related projects could include designers such as GUI
designers and
>> report designers and GUI component libraries.
>>
>> I know this is a long list but many feel that web applications are
simply
>> not fast enough or powerful enough to solve certain problems that
native
>> application features could provide.  I think that although it may sound
like
>> re-implementing VB in RoR I think that the problem domain holds and the
>> problems associated therein will remain.  If nothing else,
let''s help those
>> out who have to deal with frameworks like spring-rich.
>>
>> This is an initial poll to rally interest and see how many like-minded
souls
>> are out there.  Please advise.
>>     
> _______________________________________________
> Rails mailing list
> Rails@lists.rubyonrails.org
> http://lists.rubyonrails.org/mailman/listinfo/rails
>

Joseph,

My first post here so take it easy on me :)

I come for the world of Java and have done a couple (smallish) 
spring-rich based projects. Here''s just a couple of comments in no 
particular order:

* spring-rich/Java doesn''t _have_ to be jar hell, just use the right 
build tool (ahem, maven, ahem, or ivy as that''s what the spring project
has appearantly chosen)

* spring/spring-rich configuration isn''t _that_ bad, presuming
they''ve
finally documented some of the magic component names you need to provide 
implementations of.

* for many application problems does Ruby/Rails+Ajax provide a better 
solution than thicker RCP? I''ve been quite impressed with the ease of 
using Ajax within Rails apps.

That said, I too have thought about how compelling a Rails/RCP framework 
could be. There''s always the tcl/tk bindings for GUI ;)

Cheers,
DD


Joseph Graham wrote:
>Hello,
>I wanted to put out a message to the rails list to see who else might be
>interested in setting up a rails rich-client framework.  I am working on a
>Swing project with spring-rich (not my choice) but it occurred to me that
>the motivations behind going with spring-rich as a technology have already
>been solved by the rails API.
>Some background on spring-rich, it basically takes the pluggable framework
>"spring" and extends it to developing Swing (rich-client) desktop
>applications.  Some of the things the spring-rich framework brings to the
>table are:
>1. IoC (Inversion of Control) containers (ala Struts or its own
>implementation)
>2. Data binding using whatever model you choose.  For example the data
>binding framework could enable you to select an item in a grid control and
>which will fire a "rowSelected" type of event that will populate
the text
>fields (or wotever fields) on a detail form.
>3.  Business oriented events and hooks that allow you to implement things
>like security, login, printing, and hooks to frameworks like reporting
>systems (ala Jasper reports).
>In short it allows you to build desktop application with all of the widgets
>and speed that would bring to build data-bound, report-enabled applications
>without dealing with all of the plumbing behind it.
>
>It occurred to me that Rails does these same things but does not have a
>desktop (native) GUI library that it can bind to, and I suppose nor should
>it really.  However I think such a project would be a serious contender (if
>not killer) of frameworks such as spring rich because of all the XML
>configuration and jar file hell that is part of the motivation behind using
>rails in the first place for web applications.
>
>It seems that a project like this could accomplish the following:
>* Provide an abstract means to bind to one or more native GUI tookits
>* Provide a data binding mechanism to link controllers to GUI events and
>link model objects to fields and GUI widgets.
>* Provide a stub to one or more reporting engines that would allow one to
>send models from the GUI context to report templates.
>* Provide a client-specific plugin capabilities that would allow people to
>implement plugins to solve domain specific problems such as login and
>authentication.
>* Integration with a  deployment strategy such as JNLP or some native
>installation mechanism (i.e. Super-pimp installer).
>
>Future or related projects could include designers such as GUI designers and
>report designers and GUI component libraries.
>
>I know this is a long list but many feel that web applications are simply
>not fast enough or powerful enough to solve certain problems that native
>application features could provide.  I think that although it may sound like
>re-implementing VB in RoR I think that the problem domain holds and the
>problems associated therein will remain.  If nothing else, let''s
help those
>out who have to deal with frameworks like spring-rich.
>
>This is an initial poll to rally interest and see how many like-minded souls
>are out there.  Please advise.
>
>Best Regards,
>Joe Graham
>Josgraha [at] gmail [dot] com 
>
>_______________________________________________
>Rails mailing list
>Rails@lists.rubyonrails.org
>http://lists.rubyonrails.org/mailman/listinfo/rails
>  
>

Build the front end with XUL runner
http://developer.mozilla.org/en/docs/XULRunner

XULRunner is a single "gecko runtime" installable package that can be
used to bootstrap multiple XUL+XPCOM applications that are as rich as
Firefox and Thunderbird. It will provide mechanisms for installing,
upgrading, and uninstalling these applications.

Build the back end with RoR and WEBrick and run it on the local
machine. Use HTTP to talk to it.

The big advantage to XUL runner is that a year from now Firefox will
be a XUL runner app too.  That means that anyone who is running
Firefox will already have your GUI run-time installed.

On 1/31/06, Joseph Graham <jgraham@majikoz.com>
wrote:
> It seems that a project like this could accomplish the following:
> * Provide an abstract means to bind to one or more native GUI tookits
> * Provide a data binding mechanism to link controllers to GUI events and
> link model objects to fields and GUI widgets.
> * Provide a stub to one or more reporting engines that would allow one to
> send models from the GUI context to report templates.
> * Provide a client-specific plugin capabilities that would allow people to
> implement plugins to solve domain specific problems such as login and
> authentication.
> * Integration with a  deployment strategy such as JNLP or some native
> installation mechanism (i.e. Super-pimp installer).
You can already get all of this with XUL runner. Note that the
components in XUL ( http://xulplanet.com/references/objref/ ) can be
controlled by any language with XPCOM bindings. That includes C, C++,
Javascript, Java, Python. You don''t have to build everything with
Javascript.

You could even use Ruby to control XUL if someone wrote the XPCOM
bindings for it. It''s not very hard to do. It looks like someone has
already started: http://rbxpcom.mozdev.org/

--
Jon Smirl
jonsmirl@gmail.com

Unfortunately rbxpcom seems to have died - there''s been no updates for
4 1/2 years, and it''s stuck on version 0.0.4, which doesn''t
look that
promising.

Regards

Dave M.

On 01/02/06, Jon Smirl <jonsmirl@gmail.com> wrote:
> Build the front end with XUL runner
> http://developer.mozilla.org/en/docs/XULRunner
>
> XULRunner is a single "gecko runtime" installable package that
can be
> used to bootstrap multiple XUL+XPCOM applications that are as rich as
> Firefox and Thunderbird. It will provide mechanisms for installing,
> upgrading, and uninstalling these applications.
>
> Build the back end with RoR and WEBrick and run it on the local
> machine. Use HTTP to talk to it.
>
> The big advantage to XUL runner is that a year from now Firefox will
> be a XUL runner app too.  That means that anyone who is running
> Firefox will already have your GUI run-time installed.
>
> On 1/31/06, Joseph Graham <jgraham@majikoz.com> wrote:
> > It seems that a project like this could accomplish the following:
> > * Provide an abstract means to bind to one or more native GUI tookits
> > * Provide a data binding mechanism to link controllers to GUI events
and
> > link model objects to fields and GUI widgets.
> > * Provide a stub to one or more reporting engines that would allow one
to
> > send models from the GUI context to report templates.
> > * Provide a client-specific plugin capabilities that would allow
people to
> > implement plugins to solve domain specific problems such as login and
> > authentication.
> > * Integration with a  deployment strategy such as JNLP or some native
> > installation mechanism (i.e. Super-pimp installer).
>
> You can already get all of this with XUL runner. Note that the
> components in XUL ( http://xulplanet.com/references/objref/ ) can be
> controlled by any language with XPCOM bindings. That includes C, C++,
> Javascript, Java, Python. You don''t have to build everything with
> Javascript.
>
> You could even use Ruby to control XUL if someone wrote the XPCOM
> bindings for it. It''s not very hard to do. It looks like someone
has
> already started: http://rbxpcom.mozdev.org/
>
> --
> Jon Smirl
> jonsmirl@gmail.com
> _______________________________________________
> Rails mailing list
> Rails@lists.rubyonrails.org
> http://lists.rubyonrails.org/mailman/listinfo/rails
>

On 1/31/06, David Mitchell <monch1962@gmail.com>
wrote:
> Unfortunately rbxpcom seems to have died - there''s been no updates
for
> 4 1/2 years, and it''s stuck on version 0.0.4, which
doesn''t look that
> promising.
It shouldn''t be too hard to fix it up. XPCOM hasn''t changed in
four
years either. Or start again from scratch. It is only a few days work
to write XPCOM bindings for Ruby. But you do need to know C in order
to do it.

--
Jon Smirl
jonsmirl@gmail.com

Are there command-line parameters for launching firefox this way?  I''m
only in the initial stages of this project so we haven''t yet figured
out how to do this.  I wrote a quick sample app with a mozilla activex
control in it to accomplish the same thing, but it would be great to
be able to use an as-is version of firefox and have it load
automatically in fullscreen mode.

Thanks,
Carl

On 1/31/06, Brasten Sager <brasten@nagilum.com>
wrote:
> Agreed on the Firefox point.
>
> I completed a project about a month ago using this technique.  Rails
> with full-screen Firefox on Tablet PCs for the interface with DRb calls
> to a central server as necessary.  Rails-to-Rails web services might
> have been a better option for the Tablet-to-Server communications in
> hindsight, but it worked fine.  Out-of-the-box Firefox with AutoHide
> launching on boot-up.  Couldn''t have been more simple.
>
>   -Brasten

I ended up using this Autohide plugin: 
http://www.krickelkrackel.de/autohide/autohide.htm

Once that''s installed, you can run firefox.exe -fullscreen.  There will
be a couple seconds where Firefox pops up, maximizes and the various 
tool bars disappear, but if that''s not a problem then it''s a
pretty
decent solution.

I have been unable to get it working on the latest Firefox patch for 
some reason (1.5.0.1), but 1.5 should work.

  -Brasten

Carl Youngblood wrote:
> Are there command-line parameters for launching firefox this way? 
I''m
> only in the initial stages of this project so we haven''t yet
figured
> out how to do this.  I wrote a quick sample app with a mozilla activex
> control in it to accomplish the same thing, but it would be great to
> be able to use an as-is version of firefox and have it load
> automatically in fullscreen mode.
>
> Thanks,
> Carl
>
> On 1/31/06, Brasten Sager <brasten@nagilum.com> wrote:
>   
>> Agreed on the Firefox point.
>>
>> I completed a project about a month ago using this technique.  Rails
>> with full-screen Firefox on Tablet PCs for the interface with DRb calls
>> to a central server as necessary.  Rails-to-Rails web services might
>> have been a better option for the Tablet-to-Server communications in
>> hindsight, but it worked fine.  Out-of-the-box Firefox with AutoHide
>> launching on boot-up.  Couldn''t have been more simple.
>>
>>   -Brasten
>>     
> _______________________________________________
> Rails mailing list
> Rails@lists.rubyonrails.org
> http://lists.rubyonrails.org/mailman/listinfo/rails
>

On 2/1/06, Brasten Sager <brasten@nagilum.com>
wrote:
> I ended up using this Autohide plugin:
> http://www.krickelkrackel.de/autohide/autohide.htm
>
> Once that''s installed, you can run firefox.exe -fullscreen.  There
will
> be a couple seconds where Firefox pops up, maximizes and the various
> tool bars disappear, but if that''s not a problem then
it''s a pretty
> decent solution.
For a more advanced solution you could take the standard Mozilla
chrome and edit it to startup full screen instead of windowed. Then
start moz/firefox with firefox -chrome chrome://your edited UI.

There are also kiosk mode extensions like this one:
https://addons.mozilla.org/extensions/moreinfo.php?application=firefox&category=Kiosk%20Browsing&numpg=10&id=1659
>
> I have been unable to get it working on the latest Firefox patch for
> some reason (1.5.0.1), but 1.5 should work.
>
>   -Brasten
>
> Carl Youngblood wrote:
> > Are there command-line parameters for launching firefox this way? 
I''m
> > only in the initial stages of this project so we haven''t yet
figured
> > out how to do this.  I wrote a quick sample app with a mozilla activex
> > control in it to accomplish the same thing, but it would be great to
> > be able to use an as-is version of firefox and have it load
> > automatically in fullscreen mode.
> >
> > Thanks,
> > Carl
> >
> > On 1/31/06, Brasten Sager <brasten@nagilum.com> wrote:
> >
> >> Agreed on the Firefox point.
> >>
> >> I completed a project about a month ago using this technique. 
Rails
> >> with full-screen Firefox on Tablet PCs for the interface with DRb
calls
> >> to a central server as necessary.  Rails-to-Rails web services
might
> >> have been a better option for the Tablet-to-Server communications
in
> >> hindsight, but it worked fine.  Out-of-the-box Firefox with
AutoHide
> >> launching on boot-up.  Couldn''t have been more simple.
> >>
> >>   -Brasten
> >>
> > _______________________________________________
> > Rails mailing list
> > Rails@lists.rubyonrails.org
> > http://lists.rubyonrails.org/mailman/listinfo/rails
> >
> _______________________________________________
> Rails mailing list
> Rails@lists.rubyonrails.org
> http://lists.rubyonrails.org/mailman/listinfo/rails
>

--
Jon Smirl
jonsmirl@gmail.com

Nice kiosk extension.  I went looking for something exactly like that a 
few months ago and was unable to find anything.  Thanks for the tip!

- Brasten

Jon Smirl wrote:
> On 2/1/06, Brasten Sager <brasten@nagilum.com> wrote:
>   
>> I ended up using this Autohide plugin:
>> http://www.krickelkrackel.de/autohide/autohide.htm
>>
>> Once that''s installed, you can run firefox.exe -fullscreen. 
There will
>> be a couple seconds where Firefox pops up, maximizes and the various
>> tool bars disappear, but if that''s not a problem then
it''s a pretty
>> decent solution.
>>     
>
> For a more advanced solution you could take the standard Mozilla
> chrome and edit it to startup full screen instead of windowed. Then
> start moz/firefox with firefox -chrome chrome://your edited UI.
>
> There are also kiosk mode extensions like this one:
>
https://addons.mozilla.org/extensions/moreinfo.php?application=firefox&category=Kiosk%20Browsing&numpg=10&id=1659
>
>