How does the complex-form-examples sample app work?
The complex-form-examples sample application written by Ryan Bates and then updated by Eloy Duran and many others is the standard example of how to implement a complex form in Rails. It shows how you can create and update more than one model using the same form. Last month, I wrote about how to create scaffolding for a complex form; using my View Mapper gem you can create a simplified version of the sample app right inside your application for your models.
Today I’d like to take some time to explain how my simplified version of the complex form actually works – the key to using scaffolding in your Rails application is understanding how it works so you can eventually modify and adapt it for you needs, and discard the code you don’t need. However, since this sample application is fairly complex I decided it would be more interesting and fun to follow a single code path through the app in a series of small steps, seeing how each small piece works in detail. To do this, I wrote a series of short blog pages or slides; to see it, click the “Follow Code Path” link… once you’re on the first page you’ll see links to move forward and backward through the slides.
Let me know here if you have any feedback on either the content or the style of the code path pages since they are just hard coded HTML for now and not part of my blog. Thanks!
