Prep:
Hi! This screencast will give you a brief introduction to informl, an open-source project we've been working on at FolkLogic.
Our goal with informl is to make it easy to create simple custom web applications.
The demo you are seeing here is an intranet site we're building for King Louis XIV and his court.
This page is for capturing items for the royal TODO list.
First we'll create a new TODO item:
The default action for submit buttons is to take us to an automatically generated result page. Informl also generates a summary page with a table showing all the results.
I noticed while using this form that it would make more sense if "Not done" were pre-selected as the default value. Lets go in and edit the page to make that change. Notice on the right side there's a live preview to help you see what you're doing.
Now let's create a new page for managing negotiation workflow.
#Key negotiation info:#
Other party:: [<>]
Lead negotiator:: [<>]
Next meeting:: <<date>>
Status::
<> concluded
<> in progress
<> waiting for bribes
<> starting
((save))
Now we'll use this form:
Informl's markup is based on markdown, with some extensions for form elements. In the sidebar you will find a couple of links to help you get started.
Informl is built using Ruby on Rails. For each page with form content, like the one we've just created, informl dynamically builds a new database table and a corresponding activerecord class for the submissions to that page. If you are curious to see what these database tables look like, you can click on the schema button at the bottom of each page.
In these few minutes we've only scratched the surface of what's possible with informl. We invite you to explore the project web site at informl.folklogic.net, and let us know what you think!