This was hard to track down. For some reason I can’t find the method definition of the get function for functional tests in rails (anyone?).

Anyway, it is:

get(action, parameters={}, session={}, flash={}) 

so, you can set a flash for a test action (example):

get :index, {}, {}, {:notice => "Test Flash"}

Following yesterday’s post about the iPhone version of the site, we also launched a desktop browser version of SnapMyLife.

This was accomplished much the same way as the iPhone site. Rails 2 makes it a snap for additional formats to be added.

We attempt to redirect you to the most optimal version of the site based on your user agent string, but you are free to choose which site you want. All three sites have a “change format” link.

This week we officially released the iPhone version of SnapMyLife. This was fairly straightforward with rails 2.0 and the iui javascript framework.

Rails now uses custom formats as part of the incoming request. So I just added an “iphone” format and created views like “index.iphone.erb” where needed. This is really excellent MVC separation while allowing various versions of the site.

It took a while to get used to the everything-is-an-ajax-request style of iui. Basically, there is a single DOM that you add nodes to as navigation is followed. The javascript then adjusts the DOM as you navigate through the site.

Development wasn’t without snags. The most interesting problems had to do with Rails flash display and advertising on the device. I adjusted how iui handles the server respone. Now flash messages and a new html advert are passed along with the html data snippet. Javascript then breaks up the server response into its components and displays them properly using the iui DOM and CSS. I’ll clean it up and post it if other Rails / iui projects are interested.