Sinatra Boilerplate

A great place to start with Sinatra, HTML5 Boilerplate, Compass, CoffeeScript and Sprockets all cooked together.

TL;DR

1. Grab the code and bundle the gems.
2. Make sure you have memcached installed.
3. Run rake s to start the development server.

What's in the Box

HTML5 Boilerplate

sinatra-boilerplate uses some of the utter uber-hawtness that is the HTML5 Boilerplate but not all. I opted not to use the build script stuff because I feel like it adds an extra layer of trouble when working with Sinatra.

The base layout file is pretty compliant with what the Boilerplate puts out except for a few minor tweaks. Most of the comments have been left in place as well.

Direct implementations from HTML5BP:

• html scoping by class.
• Viewport settings for mobile browsers.
• Better analytics script.
• More awesome CSS base.
• ... probably more that I've forgotten :)

Modernizr

Modernizr is fantastic and I threw it in because... well, it's fantastic!

Compass

Because CSS sucks and SASS + Compass doesn't; it gives you all kinds of great mixins and nesting stuff that would surely make anyone who's done a lot of CSS quiver in delight. Scope the docs and get crackin'.

Susy

Susy is a fantastic grid system built to be responsive and lithe. Check out the docs here and get griddin'

Sinatra Addons

Form Tag Helpers

The thing I missed most in Sinatra was the glorious input_for kind of stuff you get with Rails, so I made some! I've included them by way of the gem I made, 'sinatra-tag-helpers'.

Routing Helpers

Some simple routing helpers I end up using a lot with Sinatra. Methods like:

• is_page?
• url_with_params
• back_with_params
• parsed_referrer_path

Extra Hawt Sauce

I've added a bunch of modules and helper functions that I use all the time to this to (hopefully) make your life easier when you're getting your app first setup. Some of the helpers methods I've added include:

• Sprockets
  • holy crap that's nice!!
  • there's a Rake task that pre-compiles your assets so nginx (or Apache or whatever) can serve them up super fast too!
• core extensions
  • adds a try method and blank? method to everything (totally stolen from Rails) so you can stop doing !nil? && !empty?
• Sinatra Modifications
  • a better erb method so you don't have to do crap like erb :"folder/file" anymore; just pass a string and it'll take care of the rest (including skipping the layout on XHR requests).

Server Goodies

• nginx configuration - all based on H5BP and a simple upstream setup for Unicorn.
• logrotate configuration - so your logs don't get crazy.

How to Use It

You like it? Awesome! Here's how to use it:

1. Download it (either through git or the download button).
2. bundle
3. Make sure you have memcached installed and running (memcached -d).
4. Run rake s from the directory you checked the code out to.
5. Profit!

If you have suggestions or think I goofed please let me know or send a pull request!

Acknowledgements

All the stuff used here is either open source or donation ware and totally the work of the people who made it, not me. I just put the pieces together and bundled it up all pretty-like. This little starter package wouldn't be possible without the awesome work these guys have done and their generosity in sharing their code with the rest of us.

Oh, and...

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So, ya know, watch out...