31 Fascinating Ruby on Rails Tutorials & Guides
Ruby on Rails is an excellent framework to learn not only because it’s a great web application framework, but also because it has a large and helpful community. In fact, chances are you can learn how to use Rails in a multitude of ways, just by searching the web.
We’ve taken it upon ourselves to compile some excellent tutorials that Rails beginner’s and zealots alike can use while working in the popular web app framework and continue exploring the endless possibilities of Rails.
GETTING STARTED
1. How to Install Rails
A getting started guide on how to set up Rails in multiple environments, from the official Ruby on Rails site.
2. Ruby on Rails for Web Development in Mac OS X
Apple has an official guide on how to get started with Rails on a Mac.
3. Installing Ruby on Rails with Lighttpd and MySQL on Fedora Core 4
Extensive documentation on how to get this great cocktail of software working for Rails.
4. Four Days on Rails
Four Days on Rails is an impressive 40-page eBook that provides a handy toolbox for Rails development.
5. Why Rails?
Rails Envy gives an argument in favor of the Rails framework.
6. Rolling with Ruby on Rails Revisited, Part 2
A “storytelling” example on the effectiveness of Rails in web applications.
7. Fast-track your Web apps with Ruby on Rails
Fast-track your Web apps with Ruby on Rails is a somewhat dated but excellent overview of how the web framework works.
8. Ruby Study Notes
If you’re not familiar with the Ruby language, check out Ruby Study Notes, a web-based tutorial on the basics of Ruby.
9. Ruby in 20 Minutes
The official Ruby site has a quickstart that will get you well underway into Ruby programming.
10. Ruby on Rails Cheat Sheet
A quick reference for Rail’s directory structure, pre-defined variables, syntax and more.
RAILS TUTORIALS
11. Ruby Loops
Dev Articles has a quick look at Ruby Loops, Methods and Blocks.
12. Rails To-Do List
A tutorial on how to create a simple to-do list with Rails. (Note: it’s slightly dated so be aware of when the advice goes against current best practices – still a useful exercise though.)
13. Send Emails with Rails
This quick guide shows how to use Rails’ mailer functionality to send emails within a web application.
14. Rails for Designers
A great starting point for learning how things like Rails and the MVC framework can be a great thing for a designer.
15. Easy Image Attachments in Rails
How to use Paperclip to swiftly attach images to an Event in Rails.
16. How to Use Gmail as Your Mail Server For Rails
An innovative strategy for using ActionMailer to farm out email sending with (almost) everybody’s favorite email host, Gmail.
17. Building a Social Network Site in Rails
A collection of plugins, tips and advice to help build your own social networking site in Rails. The article doesn’t go over all the code needed to make a social networking site, but rather touches on the most important aspects and functionality.
18. Ruby on Rails Security Guide
An excellent primer on the types of security attacks your Rails app might encounter, and how to combat them.
19. Rails and Ajax Table Pagination, Sorting and Searching
Sorting table data is incredibly useful for most data-heavy applications. Nozav.org has put together a comprehensive guide on how to make a sortible AJAX table in Rails, complete with a demo application.
20. Restful Authentication with Rails 2
The Restful Authentication plugin is a hugely popular plugin for doing all things user-releated. Avnet labs has a great tutorial on how to implement Restful Authentication with your Rails app, with many helpful screenshots and example code.
21. Converting Videos with Rails
A 2-part series on converting video in a Rails app with the FFMPEG.
DISTRIBUTING RAILS
22. Distributing Ruby Applications
Everything you’ll need to know about packing and distributing Rails applications with Tar2RubyScript and RubyScript2EXE.
23. Rails Ajax
A dated but fundamentally useful overview on how to use Ajax technologies with the Rails framework.
24. Rails and jQuery
An episode from the excellent Railscasts site going over how to use jQuery in a Rails application.
25. Dropping and Sorting with Ajax and Scriptaculous
A quick tutorial on creating a drag-n-drop interface in Rails and the popular Javascript framework Scriptaculous.
26. Auto-complete Association
A screencast on how to create a text field auto-complete experience, much like Google’s newly-revamped search functionality.
27. Getting Started with Instant Rails on Windows (screencast)
O’Reilly media has a nice 17 minute video primer on RoR for Windows users.
28. Complex forms
A slightly more advanced tutorial that focuses on making complex forms without unwieldy controllers. The tutorial has two other parts that build on the first. (Part 2, part 3)
29. Creating Plugins in Rails
The basics on creating a plugin with the Rails API. The tutorial is very extensive and thorough.
30. Paypal Basics
Railscasts has another excellent episode on how to integrate Paypal into your application for handling money transactions.
31. Active Merchant Basics
If you’re wanting to roll your own money processing system and use something other than Paypal, then you might want to try Active Merchant, a payment processing library for Rails Screencasts has an Active Merchant Basics, complete with source code.
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What a great read!
:)
I’ve been meaning to get started with some RoR, this is a great help!
Spent roughly three months dragging though Ruby to better understand Rails. This, I will admit, helped me more than any Rails tutorial could. While I’m not knocking tutorials, and I still find them necessary for me, get a grasp on Ruby before you attempt to use Rails. It will make much more sense when you work later.
I absolutely agree with Matt, understanding Ruby is essential if you want to take rails seriously, a good book is Programming Ruby ‘pickaxe’ and also for a beginner to programming, Learn To Program by Chris Pine, which is an absolute beginners guide to programming, using the Ruby language.
Great, finally some Rails stuff here. Nice collection of tuts, thanks!
Great Work, its really helpful, though I don’t use Ruby on Rails, but it would help me if I ever make up my mind to use Ruby on Rails in the future!
Thanks a ton! RoR is just superb. I wish I can use it on the Visual Studio Team System! Please let me know if you know any tricks for that.
I recently downloaded the Visual studio team system for free and its just so awesome- http://bit.ly/OxdIK
Please suggest!
The Ruby on Rails Guides project (http://guides.rubyonrails.org/) also has a ton of information on getting running with Rails.
I need this, Thanks Glen
Nice collection…
I’d like to add the Akitaonrails.com.br blog… have some nice stuff too…
Thanks Glen
why double post on a day???
thanks!! i really need this!! :D
This is what Im looking for ! Thank you very very very much !
In the spirit of Rails know-how, thought this might be of interest — a quick summary of five basic tips for scaling a Rails app. Some of them are specific to Rails; others generalize to any shared-nothing application server architecture. http://bit.ly/dqlHp
Not bad, a very interesting article!
for paypal stuffs. Ryan B have done a great work in http://www.railscasts.com about using paypal from episode #141-#146…
check it out!
I SEE ZERO Tuts for Testing. For shame. Bad designer/devs In the land of Rails you must test first and for most.
A good one for this is Ben Mabes video presentation on Cucumber: http://mwrc2009.confreaks.com/14-mar-2009-15-00-bdd-with-cucumber-ben-mabey.html
Here’s another one:
How to Deploy Your Rail App To A Real Production Server in about 15-20 mins (start to finish)
http://railsnotes.com/161-rails-server-setup
Great to see some posts dedicated to rails.
Maybe a guide on how to create a simple web application would be neat? ;)
Matt hit the nail on the head. If you’re starting out with Rails, spend some time with Ruby as a language first. With Rails, it’s very easy to get carried away with yourself but you’ll soon run into trouble. If you’ve taken the time to understand Ruby at least a little bit, you’ll be less frustrated later. I speak as someone who got carried away with Rails and later discovered I should have learned a bit of Ruby first ;)
Great Article! Thanks!
May I suggested these articles from Six Revisions, which are helpful for learning Rails:-
Getting Started with Ruby on Rails: Installation
http://sixrevisions.com/web-development/getting-started-with-ruby-on-rails-installation/
Four Ways Ruby on Rails Can Help You
http://sixrevisions.com/web-development/four-ways-ruby-on-rails-can-help-you/
dugg for the pomegranates
Bookmarked!
Though I agree with tripdragon, I’m missing the debug/test tuts.
Nevertheless, awesome collection you got here!
Thanks, i love ruby on rails :)
bookmarked.
this should get on started real quick.
This is a great list. Thanks
To write the dissertation form just about this good post is not very easy though you deal with that. If every writer is as good as you are, people will ne’er have got problems with the dissertation.
Rails recently released Rails 3 and rvm has matured in the meantime. Best to use rvm even if you’re installation rails 2.3.x
Here are couple link to help you get started:
http://railscasts.com/episodes/200-rails-3-beta-and-rvm
http://rohitarondekar.com/articles/installing-rails3-beta3-on-ubuntu-using-rvm
RoR Guide & Solutions – ‘http://rorguide.blogspot.com‘ is another blog with day to day troubleshooting, issues faced, new findings, concepts on Ruby on Rails latest versions, its installation, plugins, gems, codes & latest updates
Thanks for the list. I recently completed all my newbi ROR levels at http://railsforzombies.org for those who are new, try it :) .. Worth reading the tutorials..
can any tell me how to upload and browse ppt in rails 3
The article that here discussed for the comment is very interesting. information that are provided here is very important for the railway so the information can be used properly.