Welcome to Flash Rails


You can visit the project page for news and downloads.

I've written a "cookbook" tutorial using Flash Rails here!

Usage

Using Flash Rails is pretty simple.  Basically you just download the 7z or zip file (both are archives with the exact same content).  You can verify the md5sum if you want with the .md5.txt file.  I suggest using WinMD5Sum.  You then extract the files and put them anywhere you want.  Flash Rails works under any folder structure, even if there are spaces in the path.

There are two useful files in the extracted folder: update_path.exe and use_ruby.cmd.  You run the update_path.exe first, and re-run it anytime the location of the Flash Rails folder changes.  This updates all the path information used by the use_ruby.cmd script, the ruby interpreter, and RadRails.  The other useful file is use_ruby.cmd which opens a command line console with all the ruby tools and installed gems in the path.  This is where you will run ruby scripts from with "ruby scriptname.rb" or install gems with "gem install gemname".  Any gems you install will already be under Flash Rails and travel with your Flash Rails environment.

As for creating scripts, you can do that with any text editor or use RadRails.  The "ruby_apps" folder is provided for you to keep all your ruby projects in.  You'll notice the "use_ruby" script automatically leaves you in this folder for convenience.  You will also want to use this as your workspace if you use RadRails.  Flash Rails will automatically modify your RadRails configuration if you use this folder as your workspace.

If you extract the RadRails files somewhere in a new folder under the root of the Flash Rails folder, then Flash Rails will manage your RadRails workspace for you.  It doesn't matter what you name the RadRails folder or how deep it is nested, just be sure it is in a new folder and not one of the existing folders in the Flash Rails root folder.  The tutorial gives a good overview of using RadRails together with FlashRails.

Editions

Flash Rails comes in 3 flavors: Lite, Standard, and Ruby1.9.  If you are unsure, just download the Standard edition.

Standard:    This is the main focus of Flash Rails.  It contains everything you need to run a Rails application and weighs in at about 50mb when extracted.

Lite:    This is a slimmed down version of Flash Rails.  It contains the Ruby interpreter and rubygems and that's about it.  It's convenient if you want to save space and only want to develop Ruby applications without Rails, or maybe you want to use rubygems to install an older version of Rails.  It weights in at about 25mb when extracted.

Ruby1.9:    This is identical to the Lite edition except it includes the new Ruby1.9 interpreter instead of Ruby1.8.  The Ruby1.9 interpreter is the development branch for Ruby.  The Flash Rails script is just as stable as the other editions, but I have no control over the Ruby1.9 interpreter.  I put this edition together to help developers update their Ruby programs to be compatible with Ruby1.9.  You can put Flash Rails Ruby1.9 edition in a separate folder and use it alongside the other Flash Rails editions or your existing Ruby environment.  Just FYI, Rails is currently incompatible with the Ruby1.9 interpreter.