Hobo - the web application builder for Rails

Let’s not go so far as to call this a road-map, but I thought I’d just let you know what’s coming up.

The manual needs completing, so I’ll be chipping away at that and posting updates as I go. The manual is only the start of the documentation of course. We still need proper API docs and a decent tutorial. I’d also really like to see some kind of “How To” style docs, with things like “How to add a password reset feature.” “Hobo Recipes” I guess. Those things will have to wait for a while though. For now I’ll be putting my energy into finishing the existing manual.

Then there’s a couple of articles I’m intending to write on new features:

• Inner Tags
• Composite Models - there’s an interesting story behind these, and it’s about REST no less, so highly topical :-)

I also want to do a post on the next ‘big’ feature that’s going into DRYML - local definitions. The idea with these is that you’ll be able to write a page like this:

<page>
  <:sidecol>
    <section>...</section>
  </:sidecol>

  <:maincol>
    <section>...</section>
  </:maincol>
</page>

and have that <section> tag produce entirely different HTML in each case. This is key to getting themes to work properly, and in moving towards the Holy Grail of the view layer: total separation of logical markup from physical presentation.

Then there’s a couple of unfulfilled promises WRT making it easier for you guys to get involved: adding tests to the Hobo code-base, and having all the outstanding things to do properly tracked as trac tickets. I have not forgotten!

I’m sure there’s a million other pressing things to do too… :-)