This is an installer for Rails applications. It’s designed to allow users to install Rails apps onto their own systems with a minimum amount of effort.

This installer was originally part of Typo (typosphere.org).

Adding the installer to your Rails app

To add the installer to your application, cd to your application’s directory and run ‘rails-app-installer-setup APPNAME’. This will create several files, including ‘bin/APPNAME’ and ‘lib/tasks/release.rake’. Edit these files to make sure that they’re appropriate for your application and then add them to your revision control system.

You should now be able to test the installer like this:

$ ruby ./bin/my_installer install /tmp/foo cwd

This will try to install your app in ‘/tmp/foo` using the current directory as a template. If you leave off the `cwd` option at the end, then the installer will look for the most recent Ruby GEM for your app, using the `application_name` line from the installer as the gem name.

Creating a Gem

Using the installer