Ruby on Rails is one of the best frameworks for web application development. It is free, time-tested, has an extensive technical support base, and, most importantly, is incredibly easy to use thanks to a clearly defined and standardized syntax that allows creating “clean” and understandable code. However, the basic functionality of Ruby on Rails is not always enough.
Why Do You Need Ruby Gems?
Ruby on Rails includes the Ruby Gems package manager, which allows you to download plugins in a special.gem format from the repository and connect them to your application. Each of the gems is a rational solution to a specific problem.
Using them, you can easily implement any functionality of the future web application without much effort and time. The widest selection of Ruby gems designed for both routine and highly specialized tasks is stored in the github.com and rubygems.org repositories.
How to find the right gem? The fact is that the gems format does not imply the criteria for the search. Therefore, as a rule, in their name developers indicate what problems they can solve. Below we have reviewed 10 best Ruby gems, which will certainly help you in developing your own social network media.
A small foreword. When creating any mobile web application with unique or regularly updated information (social networks are just a particular example), it is very important to think about the mechanisms that would make it available on any platform.
For this purpose, developers of different social media sites use APIs of well-known services (Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.), which use the most rational techniques for implementing a particular functionality.
We chose the 10 best Ruby gems that will help you create a truly high-quality social network app.
- Koala. Koala gem, is a library that provides access to the functionality of the Facebook APIs, is used to extract data from various web resources. With the support of Graph, Marketing, and Atlas API, this gem rails allows you to quickly upload photos, implement the real-time updates, and also authorize users. Due to its “lightness” and speed, koala gem is often used in the development of profile-oriented web applications
- Twitter. Introducing the Ruby interface for the Twitter API, twitter gem combines the capabilities of user account updates delivery with instant messaging. This gem does not contain authorization mechanisms
- Linkedin. The Linkedin gem is a wrapper for the LinkedIn API, which provides access to powerful tools for user authorization and LinkedIn profile functionality (in particular, this gem allows you not to request repeated data to access user account on “trusted” devices, and also standardize the custom profile fields)
- Viadeo. Viadeo gem, being an implementation of the Viadeo GRAPH API, can be used to represent objects in the form of nodes of the graph and define the links between some of them (for example, profiles of friends or employees in social networks)
- Youtube. This wrapper for the Youtube API is useful for the implementation of media download functions, playlists creation and many other features that are available to Youtube users
- Pinterest. Pinterest gem provides access to the Pinterest REST API, through which you can set options for subscriber announcements, uploading graphic files, authentication, etc.
- Tumblr. This wrapper for Tumblr API will help you to implement in your application the functionality peculiar to blogs (the choice of themes, authentication, likes, design of posts, etc.)
- Reddit. Reddit gem is a wrapper for the Reddit API, providing access to functions for commenting, linking, sending instant messages, authentication, etc.
- Google_plus. Google_plus gem, being a wrapper for the Google Plus API, allows developers to easily create functionality dedicated to user authentication, sharing information between users, and setting up profiles
- Devise. Devise gem is one of the most popular. This modular plugin, based on the MVC model, implements a rich functionality for authorizing users and managing sessions. The device is the evolution of the Warden gem ideas and is intended for authentication in RoR-based web applications. The device allows logging in through multiple models at the same time
Summary
There are many different gems that will allow supplementing the functionality of your own social network media with various useful capacities in a matter of minutes, literally. Use the above Ruby gems, and they will help you not only to solve the necessary tasks faster, but also provide extensive compatibility with various platforms.