Rails - Aug 2006 - Design questions on creating digg.com-like URLs (are they considered RESTful?)

Hi everyone, I''m working on creating a site that functions similar to 
digg.com (please no "no more digg clones" remarks please! :) ).  One 
thing I really like about digg is there URLs are very nice to read and I 
would like to emulate that without having a lot of actions spread out 
all over my application.

So in my app I have three main resources:

Users, Tags, and Items (equivalent of digg''s bookmarks)

I want to create URLs that look like this:

/views/:when (where :when can be (today|week|month|year|upcoming) )
/tags/:tags/:when (:when same as before and :tags like rails+ruby+hannson)
/users/:username/:type ( where :type can be 
(voted|submitted|commented|homepage)
/users/:username/friends/:type (:type same as before)

I guess some obvious other ones are /users/:username/tags/:tags/:when 
and /users/:username/friends/:tags/:when

So given this URL design system, what kind of routes would one need and 
approximately how many actions (spread out over how many controllers - 
should I just have them all in the ItemsController)?  I''m currently 
thinking of having four actions under the ItemsController (tags, view, 
user, userfriends), but I''m not sure if this is enough or too many.  
Because other than the top tab/subtab part of the view everything 
beneath that is the same (summaries of the items).

Apologies on the long post, I''m the kind of person that if I
don''t have
something figured out before I jump in I kind of get into 
analysis-paralysis mode so even some confirmation that this system makes 
sense would really help!

Thanks!

-C

--~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
"Ruby on Rails: Talk" group.
To post to this group, send email to
rubyonrails-talk-/JYPxA39Uh5TLH3MbocFFw@public.gmane.org
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to
rubyonrails-talk-unsubscribe-/JYPxA39Uh5TLH3MbocFFw@public.gmane.org
For more options, visit this group at
http://groups.google.com/group/rubyonrails-talk
-~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---

Hi,

   I just saw your post, and I''m going to be working on a digg-clone
for a
client too over the next month.  I haven''t figured out the answer to
your
question yet, but I wouldn''t mind exchanging design ideas throughout
the
process if you''re interested

-Sidney

On 8/23/06, Catelyn Stark
<catstark-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w@public.gmane.org>
wrote:
>
>
>
> Hi everyone, I''m working on creating a site that functions similar
to
> digg.com (please no "no more digg clones" remarks please! :) ). 
One
> thing I really like about digg is there URLs are very nice to read and I
> would like to emulate that without having a lot of actions spread out
> all over my application.
>
> So in my app I have three main resources:
>
> Users, Tags, and Items (equivalent of digg''s bookmarks)
>
> I want to create URLs that look like this:
>
> /views/:when (where :when can be (today|week|month|year|upcoming) )
> /tags/:tags/:when (:when same as before and :tags like rails+ruby+hannson)
> /users/:username/:type ( where :type can be
> (voted|submitted|commented|homepage)
> /users/:username/friends/:type (:type same as before)
>
> I guess some obvious other ones are /users/:username/tags/:tags/:when
> and /users/:username/friends/:tags/:when
>
> So given this URL design system, what kind of routes would one need and
> approximately how many actions (spread out over how many controllers -
> should I just have them all in the ItemsController)?  I''m
currently
> thinking of having four actions under the ItemsController (tags, view,
> user, userfriends), but I''m not sure if this is enough or too
many.
> Because other than the top tab/subtab part of the view everything
> beneath that is the same (summaries of the items).
>
> Apologies on the long post, I''m the kind of person that if I
don''t have
> something figured out before I jump in I kind of get into
> analysis-paralysis mode so even some confirmation that this system makes
> sense would really help!
>
> Thanks!
>
> -C
>
> >
>

--~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
"Ruby on Rails: Talk" group.
To post to this group, send email to
rubyonrails-talk-/JYPxA39Uh5TLH3MbocFFw@public.gmane.org
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to
rubyonrails-talk-unsubscribe-/JYPxA39Uh5TLH3MbocFFw@public.gmane.org
For more options, visit this group at
http://groups.google.com/group/rubyonrails-talk
-~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---

You could try using a single main action in each controller, probably
''list'' or something equivalent, that can take a hash of
conditions to
use as its finder string.

I''d say limit the controllers to things you are actually displaying.
So mostly, people will be looking at items, right?  So most of those
urls are just ways of filtering down item views.

So you''d build routes like:

map.connect ''views/:when'',
:controller=>''items'',
:action=>''filter_by_time''

and then build actions like:

ItemsController < ApplicationController

def filter_by_time
  conditions = { ''posted'' => params[:when] }
  list
end

def list(conditions = {})
  Item.find(:all,:conditions=>conditions)
end

I''m not sure if that would work out quite right for you or not, but it
seems like the way to go.  You might have to build in more parameters
for the finder, especially for taggable items, but I think that would
probably work fairly well.

Of course, I could be totally wrong!  Either way, hopefully this helps you.

caleb

On 8/24/06, Catelyn Stark
<catstark-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w@public.gmane.org>
wrote:
>
>
> Hi everyone, I''m working on creating a site that functions similar
to
> digg.com (please no "no more digg clones" remarks please! :) ). 
One
> thing I really like about digg is there URLs are very nice to read and I
> would like to emulate that without having a lot of actions spread out
> all over my application.
>
> So in my app I have three main resources:
>
> Users, Tags, and Items (equivalent of digg''s bookmarks)
>
> I want to create URLs that look like this:
>
> /views/:when (where :when can be (today|week|month|year|upcoming) )
> /tags/:tags/:when (:when same as before and :tags like rails+ruby+hannson)
> /users/:username/:type ( where :type can be
> (voted|submitted|commented|homepage)
> /users/:username/friends/:type (:type same as before)
>
> I guess some obvious other ones are /users/:username/tags/:tags/:when
> and /users/:username/friends/:tags/:when
>
> So given this URL design system, what kind of routes would one need and
> approximately how many actions (spread out over how many controllers -
> should I just have them all in the ItemsController)?  I''m
currently
> thinking of having four actions under the ItemsController (tags, view,
> user, userfriends), but I''m not sure if this is enough or too
many.
> Because other than the top tab/subtab part of the view everything
> beneath that is the same (summaries of the items).
>
> Apologies on the long post, I''m the kind of person that if I
don''t have
> something figured out before I jump in I kind of get into
> analysis-paralysis mode so even some confirmation that this system makes
> sense would really help!
>
> Thanks!
>
> -C
>
> >
>

-- 
caleb
http://www.ruejulesverne.com

--~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
"Ruby on Rails: Talk" group.
To post to this group, send email to
rubyonrails-talk-/JYPxA39Uh5TLH3MbocFFw@public.gmane.org
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to
rubyonrails-talk-unsubscribe-/JYPxA39Uh5TLH3MbocFFw@public.gmane.org
For more options, visit this group at
http://groups.google.com/group/rubyonrails-talk
-~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---