[LRUG] CMS for bespoke API

Wed Sep 11 07:46:04 PDT 2013

I've found this page in the Radiant docs about creating layouts. It seems
you can specify the content type and entire structure of your documents so
I might see what I can do with it:

https://github.com/radiant/radiant/wiki/Layouts

On Wed, Sep 11, 2013 at 3:39 PM, Ian Kynnersley <iankynnersley at gmail.com>wrote:

> Thanks again. Some very interesting responses.
>
> James - I'll look into Sir Trevor and give you a shout, thanks.
>
> Jasim - CamliStore looks pretty amazing but as you said, too low-level for
> my purposes. Definitely worth keeping an eye on though.
>
> Oliver - I think of ActiveAdmin and RailsAdmin as sort of the same
> although I'm sure there are similarities. This may well end up being the
> route I take as it seems to draw the line between library code and bespoke
> code in an acceptable place.
>
> Steve / Jon - I'll look into Radiant as it sounds like it might do what I
> want. I didn't really enjoy using it last time I tried but it may have got
> better. I've built a few things with Padrino before and might give it a go.
> It seems like essentially a light-weight version of the Rails / RailsAdmin
> solution though unless I'm missing something.
>
> Riccardo - In an ideal world I could do this but I think it highly
> unlikely that we'll be allowed to open source it, sadly.
>
> I'll report back when I get started.
>
> Cheers
> Ian
>
>
>
> On Wed, Sep 11, 2013 at 12:19 PM, James Higgs <jameshiggs at gmail.com>wrote:
>
>> Hi Ian,
>>
>> I'm not sure if this is interesting, but we (Made by Many) have an open
>> source (MIT licence) browser-based rich content editor that we originally
>> made for ITV News and released with their very kind permission. It's called
>> Sir Trevor and it speaks JSON and Markdown for structured text.
>>
>> A piece of content in Sir Trevor's world is composed of "blocks" and you
>> can use the stock blocks or create your own. You can have a single instance
>> of Sir Trevor per page, or many. Up to you.
>>
>> We often use Sir Trevor inside a simple Rails admin using Devise for
>> authentication and Inherited Resources to help us scaffold out CRUD
>> functionality. It fits really well in this workflow.
>>
>> I don't know what kind of content you're looking to capture, but there
>> are built in block types for text, lists, tweets, YouTube videos, images
>> and so on. You can easily create your own custom block types - which we've
>> done a lot for ITV - to create completely tailored editing experiences if
>> the built-in block types don't suffice.
>>
>> We haven't really launched this officially, but it is in production use
>> at ITV and on our own website.  It's also already being used by a few
>> companies that are not our clients or associated with us. It has been
>> through a fairly intense period of refactoring recently, so it's pretty
>> clean.
>>
>> There's also a gem that helps you use it in Rails really easily.
>>
>> Take a look ad see if it might help. It doesn't sound like it's going to
>> solve all of your problems, but it might be a pice of the jigsaw.
>>
>> JS library: https://github.com/madebymany/sir-trevor-js
>> Rails Gem: https://github.com/madebymany/sir-trevor-rails
>>
>> If it's interesting, I can can put you in touch with the guys who
>> maintain it here and they'll provide you with help. Pull requests are very
>> welcome.
>>
>> Cheers,
>> James
>>
>>
>>
>> On Wednesday, 11 September 2013 at 10:31, Ian Kynnersley wrote:
>>
>> > Thanks for all the useful responses. I'll definitely look into Active
>> Model Serializer.
>> >
>> > Most of these replies rely on me creating a bespoke model structure in
>> code which is what I'm trying to avoid. Parse and Helios look interesting
>> but don't give me the admin interface that I need to allow totally
>> non-techie users to be able to manage the content themselves.
>> >
>> > What I'm after would be a library that I can install in my app (or
>> something hosted like Parse / Helios) that instantly gives me my CMS.
>> Something a bit like Radiant maybe. I would then want to create my model
>> structure within that CMS such that admin users could add, remove and
>> update information easily. However, unlike a normal CMS which would render
>> the output as a website with some templates to alter the look and feel, I
>> want it to provide a JSON API.
>> >
>> > The reason for all of this is that ownership of this app will be handed
>> over to a different company and they are (rightly) nervous about taking on
>> a completely bespoke application rather than a customised version of an
>> off-the-shelf product.
>> >
>> > Perhaps I am looking for something that doesn't exist so your thoughts
>> are all very useful.
>> >
>> > Thanks again
>> > Ian
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > On Wed, Sep 11, 2013 at 3:20 AM, Tejas Dinkar <tejasdinkar at gmail.com(mailto:
>> tejasdinkar at gmail.com)> wrote:
>> > > On Sep-11-2013, at 7:02 AM, Nick Novitski <nicknovitski at gmail.com(mailto:
>> nicknovitski at gmail.com)> wrote:
>> > > > There's also https://github.com/rails-api/active_model_serializers
>> > >
>> > >
>> > >
>> > >
>> > > +1 on Active Model Serializer.
>> > >
>> > > Benefits:
>> > > 1) Easily testable, and OO
>> > > 2) Has access to current_user (or any other controller method via
>> `scope'). This makes it possible for you to serialize based on who has
>> requested the object
>> > > 3) Works seamlessly with respond_with
>> > > 4) If you have the same relation object multiple times on your object
>> (say user can be created_by, updated_by, etc…) then you have a way to just
>> `embed' the user once.
>> > >
>> > > Also, +1 on rails-api gem as well :-)
>> > > --
>> > > Tejas Dinkar
>> > > http://www.nilenso.com
>> > > Nilenso Software (formerly C42 Engineering)
>> > >
>> > >
>> > > _______________________________________________
>> > > Chat mailing list
>> > > Chat at lists.lrug.org (mailto:Chat at lists.lrug.org)
>> > > http://lists.lrug.org/listinfo.cgi/chat-lrug.org
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > --
>> >
>> > Ian Kynnersley
>> > http://iankynnersley.co.uk | +44 (0) 7973 420 829 |
>> http://twitter.com/kpopper
>> > _______________________________________________
>> > Chat mailing list
>> > Chat at lists.lrug.org (mailto:Chat at lists.lrug.org)
>> > http://lists.lrug.org/listinfo.cgi/chat-lrug.org
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
>
> --
>
> Ian Kynnersley
> http://iankynnersley.co.uk | +44 (0) 7973 420 829 |
> http://twitter.com/kpopper
>

-- 

Ian Kynnersley
http://iankynnersley.co.uk | +44 (0) 7973 420 829 |
http://twitter.com/kpopper
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