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Mobile request handling for Ruby on Rails

http://tscolari.github.com/mobylette/mobylette_images/mobylette.jpg

Mobylette 2.0+ deprecated the respond_to_mobile_requests method. Now you must use include Mobylette::RespondToMobileRequests instead. to configure it, see the configuration. Also stylesheet and javascript helpers were removed.

Mobylette 1.6+ only supports Ruby 1.9.2+ For Ruby 1.8.7 support, please use version < 1.6

= Mobylette {}[http://travis-ci.org/tscolari/mobylette] {}[https://gemnasium.com/tscolari/mobylette] {}[https://codeclimate.com/github/tscolari/mobylette]

This gem works by adding the 'mobile' format to your rails application. Whenever a request come from a mobile device, if you have your controller mobile enabled, it shall render the view.mobile.erb instead of the view.html.erb (or haml, or whatever).

== How does it work?

By adding "respond_to_mobile_requests" in your application_controller (or any other controller), your controllers (or that controller) will understand mobile requests as a new mime type alias "mobile". This will make the controller to search for the .mobile.erb file instead of the .html.erb. Also you will be able to do:

respond_to do |format|
  format.html   { ... }
  format.mobile { ... }
end

== Installation

Add the gem to your gemfile:

gem 'mobylette'

And add to your ApplicationController.rb (for enabling it to all your controllers) or to the controllers you want this functionality on:

include Mobylette::RespondToMobileRequests

After that, you may start adding your .mobile. views.

== Helpers

  • ==== is_mobile_request?

    This helper returns true if the request comes from a mobile device, false if it does not.

  • ==== is_mobile_view?

    Returns if the current format is :mobile or not.

  • ==== request_device?

    Returns true/false if the current request comes from the device passed as parameter.

    Examples: request_device?(:iphone)

    request_device?(:android)

    Only :iphone, :ipad, :ios and :android are recognized by default. But you can add other devices, check configuration.

== Configuration

You can set the configuration with the mobylette_config method:

mobylette_config do |config|
  ... configuration
end

=== Custom User Agents

Mobylette works upon detecting the user agent of the visitor browser. By default it will detect any mobile user agent. But you can customize this by passing a proc with a regex of any matching user agent you may wish.

mobylette_config do |config| config[:mobile_user_agents] = proc { %r{iphone|ipad}i } end

=== Skipping User Agents

If you need to exclude one or more user agents from the mobile format, lets say ipad for example, you may use the :skip_user_agents option:

mobylette_config do |config| config[:skip_user_agents] = [:ipad] end

=== Fall Backs

Fall backs are handled as a chain of formats. By default the only chain is :mobile => [:mobile, :html]. You can override this and add your own fall back chains using the mobylette_config.

mobylette_config do |config| config[:fallback_chains] = { mobile: [:mobile, :html], iphone: [:iphone, :mobile, :html], ... } end

When you create a custom format with fall back chains, :iphone for example, you must register it as a Mime::Type:

config/initializers/mime_types.rb

Mime::Type.register_alias 'text/html', :iphone

this is very important, don't forget!

:mobile is already registered!

If you don't want any fall backs, just set it to:

mobylette_config do |config| config[:fallback_chains] = { mobile: [:mobile] } end

=== XHR Requests

By default the mobile device verification will skip XHR requests, and these will be served as if mobylette wasn't there. You can override this behavior by setting the :skip_xhr_requests option to false on your controller:

mobylette_config do |config|
  config[:skip_xhr_requests] = false
end

You may need to use this if you are using JQuery mobile or something similar in your application.

=== Registering Mobile Devices

Mobylette 3.0+ has a request_device? helper. By default only :iphone, :ipad, :ios and :android devices come registered. But you can register any device using the mobylette_config method:

mobylette_config do |config| config[:devices] = { my_unique_phone: %r{UniquePhone 1.2.3}, ... } end

Note: This will not add the device to the mobile user_agent detection. For that read #Custom User Agents.

== Skipping mobile filter

In the case you need to skip a mobile_request for been treated as mobile, you can pass the skip_mobile=true param to the url/request.

For example, you are using jquery_mobile and by that :skip_xhr_requests = false, but there is a special case where you need to process an Ajax, then you can use this param.

== Forcing/Ignoring Mobile Requests

You may force your user to aways render the mobile format, or to aways render the default request format (when the request comes from a mobile device). You can use the session var :mobylette_override for doing it:

session[:mobylette_override] = :ignore_mobile

This will skip the code that would force the mobile format. By doing this, your user will aways render the 'original' version of your app.

session[:mobylette_override] = :force_mobile

This will force the mobile format rendering, no matter from where the user is requesting it (unless it's a xhr request).

session[:mobylette_override] = nil

=== Notice: Be sure you are forcing / skiping mobile requests e.g. in a before_filter like : skip_or_force_mobile BEFORE you are including the Mobylette::RespondToMobileRequests module. Mobylette adds own before_filter to check the session var which would be executed before your filter.

class ApplicationController < ActionController::Base #...

before_filter :skip_or_force_mobile

include Mobylette::RespondToMobileRequests

mobylette_config do |config|
  config[:mobile_user_agents] = proc { %r{iphone|android}i }
  config[:skip_user_agents]   = []
end

# ...
private 

def skip_or_force_mobile
  session[:mobylette_override] = :ignore_mobile if params[:skip_mobile]
  session[:mobylette_override] = :force_mobile if params[:force_mobile]
end

end

This will disable any override (default).

If you need to customize how mobile requests are identified you can override the is_mobile_request? method in your controller, with your own logic. For example, if you want the mobile.app.com to render mobile views, and the app.com to render the normal views:

class ApplicationController << ActionController::Base include Mobylette::RespondToMobileRequests

...

private

def is_mobile_request?
  request.host == "mobile.app.com"
end

end

== Testing

http://tscolari.github.com/mobylette/mobylette_images/helmet.jpg

Don't drive your mobylette without your Helmet! It's safer to do tests!

For testing, include the Mobylette::Helmet module to your test/test_helpers.rb:

require 'mobylette/helmet'
include Mobylette::Helmet

For RSpec: add to your spec/spec_helpers.rb or create a spec/support/mobylette.rb with the following:

require 'mobylette/helmet'
RSpec.configure do |config|
  config.include Mobylette::Helmet, :type => :controller
end

This will add 3 methods to your test scope:

force_mobile_request_agent(agent = 'Android')

This will force a mobile user_agent, allowing you to test mobile requests.

reset_test_request_agent

This will reset your user_agent to the test default "Rails Testing". You don't need to call this every time, all your requests by default are "Rails Testing" in your test env.

set_session_override(override_value)

This will force the session_override value in the users session. Values possible values are: :ignore_mobile and :force_mobile

Friendly note: on your tests, call these functions BEFORE you make the request, otherwise they are useless =p

= License

MIT License. Copyright 2012 Tiago Scolari.