Learning Rails

Getting Started with Instant Rails

Instant Rails is a single-install environment for Windows that includes the parts you need to get started building Rails applications. Installing it is trivial. Get the latest version from http://instantrails.rubyforge.org/wiki/wiki.pl and unzip the file wherever you’d like it to go. There is no real install program.

Once you’ve unzipped Instant Rails, you can start to develop your Rails application by opening InstantRails.exe. You’ll see the basic screen shown in Figure 1-6.

Figure 1-6. The main Instant Rails screen

Warning

If you’re running Windows Vista, you may get a warning that “The publisher could not be verified.” If you want to run Instant Rails, you’ll need to click the Run button. (To turn off the warning, uncheck the “Always ask before opening this file” box.)

You may also get a warning about Apache or Ruby also being blocked from accepting incoming network requests. You’ll have to unblock those, too.

To create a new application, click on the “I” button to the left of the Apache button, and choose Rails Applications and then Manage Rails Applications…. You’ll see Figure 1-7, the dialog for managing Rails applications, appear.

To create a new Rails application (beyond the samples that come with Instant Rails), click on the Create New Rails App… button at the lower left of Figure 1-7. You might expect to get a dialog box, but surprise! You’ll ...