If you are a web developer who has already realized the power of Ruby on Rails but wants to take your Rails knowledge further, this book will be invaluable to you. Practical Rails Projects assumes you know the basics of using the framework, concentrating instead on taking you through the creation of a multitude of practical real-world examples, including a blog, a personal organizer, a calendar, a PHP site retrofitted to Rails, and much more. Each example application follows best practices, gives a nod to style as well as functionality, and takes advantage of many Rails plug-ins, Rails engines, and Ruby Gems. There is also discussion of cutting-edge Rails functionality, such as the new REST implementation and Active Resource.

The book starts off by taking you through setup of an ideal development environment as a helpful recap, before diving into the projects straight afterwards.

* Takes you through the creation of several real-world Rails web applications.
* Provides a guide to setting up a perfect development environment with Rails and SQLite or MySQL, supporting Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux operating systems.
* Doesn't waste time on the basics--assumes you know the fundamentals of Ruby and Rails already.
* Covers the newest Rails functionality, such as new plug-ins and engines, as well as the Rails REST implementation and Active Resource.

What you'll learn

* How to set up Rails for Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux
* How to use Rails with both MySQL and SQLite databases
* How to incorporate the latest plug-ins, engines, and Ruby Gems into your applications, saving you hours of development time
* How to make consistent styling of your applications a walk in the park using the Yahoo YUI
* How to retrofit a PHP site to Rails
* How to add sparkle to your applications using Ajax techniques
* How to use cutting-edge Rails functionality such as REST and Active Resource