More automatic/DRY form generation and maintenance?

Rails
1

Hi,

I have been using Rails for some time (working on my first project now)
and
I am wondering whether I am missing something obvious. There are so many
automatisms and conventions in the Rails code that there must be a way
to
do this.

When I create a Model, I can specify restrictions and connections to
other
models. E.g.

class User < AR…
validates_length_of :name, :minimum => 5, :maximum => 10
validates_format_of …
# etc.
end

So …

  1. When I decide to rename a column via a migration, is there a way to
    automatically push this change through existing code? Say I want to
    split “name” up into “surname” and “firstname”. Do I really have to
    manually dig through my code and do the replacement manually everywhere?
    I could rig up an attr_accessor “name” that returns firstname + " " +
    surname, but for unchanged scaffolds and controllers, I would expect a
    rerun of “generate scaffold” (etc) to create the new “correct”
    scaffolds.

  2. If I have an object (= database column) that has multiple
    restrictions,
    and want to create a basic CRUD model, (how) can I autogenerate

2a. JS code that checks for e.g. format, length, etc. restrictions to
be
OK using onSubmit()?
2b. AJAX code that checks for server-side restrictions (eg
uniqueness) “on-line”, e.g. onBlur()?
2c. links to connected tables? E.g.:
- “User :has_many phonenumbers” should result in a link
“Add phonenumber” when editing the user, or similar)
- “User :has_one car” should result in an appropriate SELECT
field
- etc.

  1. Can I easily design my own “default templates” for scaffolds and/or
    trestles? Some default CSS and additional features would be nice and
    DRY.

So far, so good … :wink: I’d appreciate any pointers or help on these.

Thanks!

–
Jens