Setting up the Rails Application

First, let's create a new Rails application. You can do this using the following command in your terminal:

rails new my_blog

This will create a new Rails application named "my_blog". Now, navigate into the application directory:

cd my_blog

Let's start a Rails server to preview our application:

rails server

Open your web browser and go to http://localhost:3000. You should see the default Rails welcome page.

Creating the Blog Post Model

Now, let's create the model for our blog posts. In your terminal, run:

rails generate model Post title:string body:text

This will create a new model called "Post" with two attributes: title (string) and body (text). We'll use this model to store our blog posts.

Now, let's create a migration to add these attributes to our database. Run this command:

rails db:migrate

This will create a migration file and update your database with the new table and attributes.

Creating Controllers and Views for Posts

Let's create a controller for managing our blog posts:

rails generate controller Posts index show new create edit update destroy

This will generate a new controller called "PostsController" with the following actions: index, show, new, create, edit, update, and destroy. These actions will handle displaying all posts, showing a single post, creating a new post, editing an existing post, updating a post, and deleting a post, respectively.

We also need to create views for these actions. These views will be rendered by the controller and will display the data to the user.

Connecting the Controller to the View

We've set up the model, controller, and views, but now we need to connect them. Let's start with the index action in the PostsController. Open the file app/controllers/posts_controller.rb and add the following code:

class PostsController < ApplicationController
  def index
    @posts = Post.all
  end
end

This code fetches all blog posts from the database and assigns them to the @posts variable. This variable will be available in the corresponding view, app/views/posts/index.html.erb. This file will be responsible for rendering the list of blog posts.

Creating the Show View

Now, let's create the show view for displaying a single blog post. Open the file app/views/posts/show.html.erb and add the following code:

<%= @post.title %>
<%= @post.body %>

This code will display the title and body of the blog post.

Building the New and Create Views

For creating new blog posts, we need the new view for creating a form to enter the post details and the create view for handling the form submission.

# app/views/posts/new.html.erb
New Post
<%= form_with model: @post, url: posts_path do |f| %>
  

    <%= f.label :title %>
    <%= f.text_field :title %>
  
  

    <%= f.label :body %>
    <%= f.text_area :body %>
  
  <%= f.submit "Create Post" %>
<% end %>

# app/views/posts/create.html.erb
# This view is not required as the create action will redirect to the show view

The new view uses the form_with helper to create a form with input fields for title and body. The create view doesn't need any code as it will be handled by the controller and redirect to the show view.

Implementing the Edit and Update Views

Similar to the new and create views, we need the edit and update views for editing existing blog posts. The edit view will display the form to edit the post, and the update view will handle the submission.

# app/views/posts/edit.html.erb
Edit Post
<%= form_with model: @post, url: post_path(@post) do |f| %>
  

    <%= f.label :title %>
    <%= f.text_field :title %>
  
  

    <%= f.label :body %>
    <%= f.text_area :body %>
  
  <%= f.submit "Update Post" %>
<% end %>

# app/views/posts/update.html.erb
# This view is not required as the update action will redirect to the show view

The edit view uses form_with with the existing post object and the update action in the controller to handle the submission.

Creating the Destroy View

The destroy view is used to delete a post. It doesn't require any HTML code as it will be handled by the controller.

# app/views/posts/destroy.html.erb
# This view is not required as the destroy action will redirect to the index view

Testing the Blogging Platform

Now, you can start creating posts in your browser and testing the functionality you've added. You can navigate to the index page, create new posts, view single posts, edit them, and delete them. Make sure everything works as expected.

Further Enhancements

You can add more features to your blogging platform, such as:

• User authentication for creating accounts and logging in.
• Comments section for each post.
• Categories for organizing posts.
• Search functionality to easily find posts.
• Image uploads for posts.
• Integration with social media platforms.

By adding these features, you can create a more comprehensive and user-friendly blogging platform.