README

Ramf RoR plugin
===============
This plug-in is used to integrate RAMF in to the rails framework.



Usage
=====

install RAMF gem: (I assume git-hub source is already defined)
sudo gem install neerfri-ramf

install RAMF rails plugin:
script/plugin intall git://github.com/neerfri/ramf_rails.git

this will install 3 files in your application (except for the plugin directory)
1. app/controllers/ramf_controller.rb - This is the controller to direct the flash to (/ramf/gateway)
2. app/views/ramf/gateway.html.erb - This is a small HTML to check that the gateway is working
3. config/initializers/ramf_initializer.rb - a file to place RAMF configuration and initialize options

Flash
-----
On the flash side you should set your destination to "http://my.site.com/ramf/gateway".
When declaring service name in flash you can use either "AccountsController" or "Accounts".


Rails
-----
In controller actions, few new methods exist:
1. ramf_params - An array with the parameters passed from the flash when action was called.
2. is_amf - Will return true if the action is processed in amf format.
3. credentials - A hash with the credentials sent from flash with the current request (or {:userid => nil, :password => nil} when flash didn't send any).

You can also use the following idiom (which could bring you to very DRY code):
def index
  @accounts = Acount.find :all
  respond_to do |format|
    format.amf {render :amf=>@accounts}
    format.xml {render :xml=>@accounts.to_xml}
    format.html {render} #you know... the default.
  end
end

Every action processed via AMF must call "render :amf=>@something", otherwise a nil will be returned to the client.

Scopes
------
RAMF enables us to transfer an object to the client in different scopes.
for example, when a users asks to see his account page we would want to:
@@@
render :amf=>@account, :scope=>:full
@@@
the :full scope is defined in the class Account (refer to RAMF documentation to see how).
in this example it will render the @account object with all it's parameters so the user can see them (email, address,...)


when the user wants to see information about his friend you would want to:
@@@
render :amf=>@account, :scope=>:friend
@@@ 
In the model you would define this scope to show all the attributes you want friends to see on each other.

when looking at the list of all users in the system:
@@@
render :amf=>@accounts, :scope=>:public
@@@
well, you could guess here...

Notice that this can be used both for privacy reasons and to optimize serialization time and data size. 

RemoteObject
------------
RAMF and RAMF rails plugin currently has partial support for FlexMessaging, 
working with messaging requires no special treatment, unless using the login and logout features of RemoteObject.
When using remoteObject.setCredentials(...) you need to define a handler to process these login requests.

TODO: Should place here a link to a guide to writing login processor 
    



Example
=======

...


Copyright (c) 2008 Neer Friedman, neerfri@gmail.com, www.neerfri.com , released under the MIT license