Schienenzeppelin has been archived! Building a custom Rails generator was a fun experiment. Unfortunately, it's ultimately unwieldy and not maintainable. Check out Kalamazoo for a simpler alternative.
The Ruby on Rails app generator to get you started quickly. Includes TailwindCSS, Devise, Capistrano and much more. Check out these screenshots and What's in the Box to find out more.
Install the Schienenzeppelin gem:
gem install schienenzeppelin
Make sure you have Ruby and Yarn installed. Then run:
sz <app-name>
Loads of things!
Schienenzeppelin provides you with a ready-to-go Rails app that you can take to production in a matter of minutes. It comes pre-configured with several gems and utilities that - while kind of standard - are not included in the default Rails app generator. Some highlights include:
- Fully responsive pages using TailwindCSS and High Voltage out of the box. And custom scaffolds to boot! ✨
- Authentication & Authorization comes standard. Starting your app with Schienenzeppelin means Devise is already set up 👍
- Dockerized everything. That includes a Dockerfile to get you started with containerizing your app, and a docker-compose-powered development environment 🐳
- Deploying your app is easy as pie. All the basic Capistrano configuration is done already, just put in your server location and you are off to the races 🚀
The nice thing about Schienenzeppelin is that it sets you up with basic pages that don't look like garbage - allowing you to focus on other things than design.
Curious what that looks like? Check out these screenshots.
Schienenzeppelin comes pre-configured with tailwindcss-rails. We provide several UI components as a starting point in app/javascript/stylesheets/components.scss - easy to adapt, and easy to add your own.
High Voltage offers an easy way to add static pages - no controllers needed. Out of the box, Schienenzeppelin provides a mobile-friendly home page and an improved application layout.
Schienenzeppelin adds a bunch of scaffolds that you adapt to suit your own needs in lib/scaffolds. These scaffolds take advantage of Tailwind to match the look of the rest of your application.
Hotwire is the new hotness. Starting with Schienenzeppelin means that Hotwire and its components such as Stimulus are already added to your application.
Schienenzeppelin also takes advantage of Tailwind-Stimulus-Components to provide interactive componenets (Dropdowns, Alerts...) out of the box.
Modern web apps need tons of functionality out of the box. Authentication, Authorization, APIs and much more. Schienenzeppelin comes with some basics to get you started quickly.
Devise is already configured if you start your application with Schienenzeppelin. For a smooth first start, db/seeds.rb create an admin user, and your navigation bar already contains links where users can sign in or sign up.
Pundit provides a simple way to encapsulate authorization logic in your application. You can add new policies to the app/policies folder. To generate a new policy run rails generate pundit:policy.
Schienenzeppelin per default foregoes ActiveJob in favor of Sidekiq.
To serialize and deserialize to and from Json OJ is pretty much standard. Schienenzeppelin already comes pre-configured with it.
For rendering JSON views we use JB instead of JBuilder, as it is both faster and simpler to use.
Service Objects are a simple, straight-forward way to encapsulate your business logic and keep your controllers and models nice and slim.
Schienenzeppelin provides a basic service object base class you can inherit from to add your own service objects in app/services.
A setup script that allows for easy setup of the application on a new machine is provided. It is automatically tailored to your specific app configuration.
Once you have set up everything your application can be started with a single command-line call - using Foreman. All necessary procfiles are generated.
Schienenzeppelin comes with a custom .irbrc that adds history and syntax completion. Factory Bot methods will also be available in the console.
Annotate adds comments to your models to show the current table schema. Automatically run during each migration.
PostgreSQL is already configured if you start your app - in such a way that it plays nicely with other utilities such as dotenv and docker-compose too!
Dotenv is a nifty gem that makes environment variables easier to manage.
Docker is incredibly helpful when developing and deploying your application. Schienenzeppelin provides a docker-compose file
as well as an optimized Dockerfile (with complementary .dockerignore) to get you started.
We added support for the asdf version manager. A .tool-versions file is automatically included in your app.
Schienenzeppelin provides a custom .gitignore that is tailored to your app.
Creating your app with Schienenzeppelin will automatically add Rubocop and a minimal set of Rubocop rules for both your production and test code.
While Rails secrets are usually prepared for development, Schienezeppelin sets up everything for production as well.
Rspec and its helpers rspec-mocks and shoulda come standard.
Factorybot provides an easy way to create test data.
Schienenzeppelin already comes with a workflow file that should cover your basic need. A good starting point for further customization.
Capistrano is already set up. Deploy to a server of your choice with minimal effort.
I wanted something that fits the way I like to write my Rails app. There are many application templates, but this one is mine.
I'm so glad you asked. The Schienenzeppelin was an experimental railcar that was briefly in operation during the 1930s. It was pretty fast, and it ran on Rails. Get it? 🤪
This idea is nothing new, and there are tons of other projects I took inspiration from.
Special shout out to Chris Oliver, whose Jumpstart Pro is crazy good. You should get it.
Suspenders was where I first came across the idea to try my hand at custom template generators.