Welcome to the initial steps of our Recipe Book Project! Let’s start by creating a simple yet deployable application with a homepage and an admin management page. The homepage should feature your team’s logo and project name. Once you’ve built it, deploy the application to set the stage for continuous deployment.

In the first month, we’ll focus on foundational tasks:

1. Create a Base Deployable Website:
   • Design a homepage with a simple header, footer, and main page.
   • Include your team’s name and logo for easy identification.
2. Create Users:
   • Develop an automated test user system.
   • Create secondary users for varied testing scenarios.
   • Build a list page to display users.

Now, let’s delve into the process:

Build the Homepage: First things first, let’s get a basic homepage built for the application.  It will need a simple header, footer and main page to start.  Putting your team name and logo will ensure that your team will know they’re in the right place, so let’s start with those.  Adding the signup button is optional this month as it goes nowhere.

Deployment: Once you have your base website, let’s get that deployed to production.  This will ensure you don’t run into configuration issues when you’re ready for your users to start adding recipes. I’m using Heroku for my deployment.  So my setup includes the basic dyno, Postgres DB and Mailgun for emails.  We don’t need email capabilities right now but I did run into issues with Heroku Add-Ons, so I recommend adding email when it’s cost appropriate for you. 

Create Users: Develop a User Object with key attributes such as name, email, title, and a photo (using Gravatar if available).

• Generate seed users and test users for robust testing.

Testing and Continuous Deployment: Embrace a testing-centric approach by adding tests for seed and test users. Regularly deploy your application to ensure compatibility with the production environment along with running your test.

These foundational steps set the groundwork for a functional Recipe Book Project. Stay tuned for further developments as we continue enhancing our application. Happy coding!

If you want a good start on this project and many other projects, I recommend Michael Hartl’s Rails Tutorial. The Recipe Book Project is a derivative of his Sample App that can be used for a fun team building project. For more information, visit his website: Rails Tutorial by Michael Hartl

What’s coming up next month: User sign up, sign in and sign out