Designing template for Ruby on Rails view. What and where to learn?

Question

Hi. I have a project going on, and I am in charge of the front-end design, whereas my developers will work on the back-end with Ruby on Rails.

I do not know Ruby on Rails, and am designing front-end using XHTML, CSS, jQuery, 960.gs CSS Framework. My developer is supposed to take my design and connect the elements of back-end to it, with Ajax too.

What are the things that I should know while designing the template/view so that I won't kick my developers' asses with my design? How to help the connecting of elements painless? I understand I must avoid . Some Ruby on Rails developers also prefer Blueprint CSS Framework over 960.gs.

Any guidance? Thanks.

Answer 1

Generally the Rails templating system is quite flexible and will enable developers to create even complex designs. The CSS framework should not make such a difference. However if they are using Rails 2.x it is markedly easier to use Prototype instead of jQuery. However Rails 3.x is also agnostic to javascript library.

A relatively good overview is the official guide. You might also try out this tool for cutting up your views and layouts.

Answer 2

I can speak from the developer point of view.

The things that piss me off are too complicated css structures, keep it simple and abstract as you can.

The other things is naming classes and ids, in general try to find out what models the developer is using and name your classes and ids accordingly. E.g. for a blog with posts: #posts .post for a post in the index view and #post for a post in the show view. I never care what css framework the designer uses, as long as it works. And lastely, if you design different html pages, be aware that we often have only one or two layouts, that's eg. /views/layouts/application.html.erb and we usually try to keep that number low as possible.

jQuery is find, ever been my preferred choice over rails' own prototype.