Web-based
Last updated
Last updated
Instead of installing Ruby on Rails and an editor on your computer, you can use a webservice for development. All you need is a browser and an internet connection. This guide explains how to get started with codenvy.io. If you’re using a different service, they may use a different wording, but the process is usually pretty similar.
If you use Internet Explorer, we recommend installing Firefox or Google Chrome.
Open whatsmybrowser.org and update your browser if you don’t have the latest version.
Go to codenvy.io and signup for free. You will need to confirm your email and then fill in your details.
The Ruby on Rails Workspace has all the software we need for the workshop already preinstalled. To create a workspace, log into codenvy.io and click on ‘Dashboard’. If no workspace has been created yet, the ‘New Workspace’ view is displayed.
In the ‘New Workspace’ view, a few settings have to be made.
Give the workspace a name of your choice. In the example this is “railsgirls”.
From “Select Stack”, select “Quick Start”, scroll down and select “Rails”
Now click on ‘Create’ to create the workspace (it takes a moment for the process to finish)
Codenvy creates a folder ‘/projects’ during initialization, in which you can later put your code.
If you’ve just created your project, you can probably skip these steps - they’re good to know if you login to Codenvy again later
If you haven’t used your workspace or projects in a while, they might have been shutdown due to inactivity. You will notice an empty circle displayed next to the workspace name.
In this case simply click on the name of the workspace. It will then be restarted (which can take a while) and afterwards opened.
If you have restarted a workspace, you need to run the bundle command again in the directory of your Rails project (you will learn more about the command in the app tutorial)
On the left hand side, you find a file browser where you can navigate your directories and file
In the middle, you find the editor where you can modify your files
At the bottom, you find the terminal where you can run commands
Everything you need is right here in you browser window - you do not need to start an editor or terminal anywhere else
If you are following a guide or tutorial, use the commands for Linux even if you are on a Windows computer - your operating system does not matter, since all commands are run on your project’s machine in the cloud, which is running Linux
If a guide or tutorial asks you to run a rails command that contains rails or rake, prepend bundle exec to this command, e. g. bundle exec rails db:migrate. Exception: the rails new command is not prefixed.
If a guide or tutorial asks you to start the rails server with rails server or rails s, append -b 0.0.0.0 to this command so that you run rails server -b 0.0.0.0
If a guide or tutorial asks you to point your browser to something like http://localhost:3000, follow these instructions instead:
Go to ‘Workspaces’ and click your running workspace
Click 'Servers' and copy the Address entry in the line starting with ‘server-3000-tcp
For example, if the tutorial wants you to visit http://localhost:3000/posts, you would open the URL http://node3.codenvy.io:33079/posts instead.
