Many projects, with the same framework

Rails Deployment
1

I have many websites but much the same framework for each of them. The
only differences being the views, the styles, the databases and
deploy.rb.

What’s the best way to arrange things in version control e.g. svn so
that I can maintain and deploy these projects and keep the core code
with the little differences for each project?

Thanks

John S.

2

John S. wrote:

I have many websites but much the same framework for each of them. The
only differences being the views, the styles, the databases and
deploy.rb.

What’s the best way to arrange things in version control e.g. svn so
that I can maintain and deploy these projects and keep the core code
with the little differences for each project?

John, laying out a project in SVN or other repository will depend a lot
on how you have structured your code, so I can’t really speak directly
to that. Instead, let me share how I’ve solved a similar problem.

I have a framework, with vertical plugins (based on Rails Engines, more
below) that I organize like so:

/harness/trunk
/plugins/<plugin_name>/trunk
/sites/<site_name>/trunk

Harness contains the main rails framework, but virtually no code

The plugins each contain a vertical - user management, a CMS, a blog, a
wiki… as well as a few core plugins for shared code, libraries, etc.

The site plugins each contain the custom information for a site -
layout, css, custom app code (models, views, etc), which because I have
such powerful vertical plugins, contains a small amount of code, css and
configuration

So a deployed app has the harness, the core plugins all sites use, a
selection of plugins for that site’s features (eg a blog), and the site
plugin for that domain to put on a coat of paint and to add any
site-custom config and functionality.

It’s a great system, and I’m very happy with the results. The trick is
to figure out how to build your harness such that the plugins can do all
the work. For example, my database.yml file is empty - I configure the
database in a custom boot script that pulls its data from my site plugin
automagically.

Hope that helps, and DEFINITELY check out http://rails-engines.org if
you haven’t already. Engines rule for reusable web coding.