Design your own web application using the Rails framework. At a minimum, your web application must satisfy the following requirements:

• You must have at least three controllers. For single-student projects, each controller must have at least two actions. For pair projects, you must have at least 10 actions overall spread through your controllers; you can either get to this level by adding more controllers or more actions to existing controllers.
• You must have several model classes (tables).
  • Single-student projects: at least 4 model classes with at least 4, useful methods (4 methods overall - some model classes may not need methods)
  • Pair projects: at least 6 model classes with at least 8, useful methods (8 methods overall)
• You must make use of relationships between objects (such as orders containing order lines).
• You must enter (useful) seed data. I will use this data as a starting point to evaluate your solution.
• You must implement at least 3 tests. For multi-person projects, each person is to write three tests. The tests need not completely cover a feature, but they should have some reasonable chance of failing.
• You may use the scaffolding code as one of your controllers, but you must add enough CSS and functionality that it does not look like thr out-of-the-box scaffolding. You can use additional scaffolding in your project, but these cannot count towards your minimum number of controllers.
• Make sure your system has some non-trivial logic to it such as interesting interactions between controllers or computing statistics across multiple objects.
• If security is an integral part of your project, you must add passwords but may use clear-text passwords. If security is only needed for administrative tasks such as adding new users or item categories, you need not implement passwords for this security. However, scaffolding you set up for these administrative tasks cannot count as one of your required controllers.
• Do not implement login forms unless it's in addition to a signficant amount of other functionality. Login is not interesting: it consists of reading and comparing strings.
• Use embedded JavaScript in at least one non-trivial application such as making sections appear without reloading a form. However, do not put signficant business logic into JavaScript; critical logic must be on the server in Rails applications, and this project is more about Ruby on Rails than JavaScript.
• Introduce enough CSS to make your system reasonably well formatted. Extensive CSS and JavaScript support will not improve your grade, but you do need to have some.
• Modify the file your_project/public/index.html so it contains basic instructions and links for accessing your rails project. This file will contain pure HTML code (no embedded Ruby), and must contain the following basic pieces of information:
  • Who wrote the application (your names).
  • What the system does.
  • Any interesting features about the system.
  • A link to the starting point.
  • Links to any critical scaffolding (code needed to maintain lists or do other operations that would be done only by administrators).
  • A list of valid usernames and passwords (if appropriate).
  • A checklist showing that you meet all requirements.

Treat this project like a term paper: barely covering the requirements with a barely adequate implementation may get you a passing score, but to get full credit you need to put in the effort to make sure your solution works well and is well-engineered. In particular, be sure you use good OO principles (solid abstractions with high cohesion, minimize the coupling between classes) and make effective use of the Rails framework.

Possible Projects

• A calendar tool which allows the user to enter todo items for specific dates, lists upcoming events, and allows the user to todo items as completed. You would need to augment this with such features as categorizing todo items by a task and listing both the done and not done items for a specific task. You may also need to add support for multiple users to make the problem large enough.
• A meeting system which allows users to post potential meetings and sign up for existing meetings. You'd probably want to add a feature to list meetings by keywords.
• An animal lost&found system: allow users to post pictures and descriptions of lost animals (and information such as where the animal was last seen and how to contact the owner), and allow other users to search by cities (where the animal was last seen) and possibly even animal characteristics (dog vs. cat vs. other, color, hair length, etc.). There should be a way to mark animals as having been found - at the very least, such a feature would be an important marketing tool for your system!
• A system to record time spent on various tasks. Allow users to define a set of tasks, probably organized into projects. When a user wants to record time, she or he would log in to the project, pick a task, and click on a "start timer" link. When done, the user would click on a "stop timer" link. The system would then save the start and stop times to the database. You would then provide reports to show how much time was spent on each task by either all people in a particular project as well as by the individual user.

Certainly do not hesitate to talk to your instructor if you need to develop ideas or get help in general.

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