Catalyst Book

Accelerating Perl Web Application Development Understand the Catalyst Framework and MVC architectureBuild and test a site with CatalystDetailed walkthroughs to create sample applicationsExtend Catalyst through plug-ins In Detail Many web applications are implemented in a way that makes developing them painful and repetitive. Catalyst is an open-source Perl-based Model-View-Controller framework that aims to solve this problem by reorganizing your web application to design and implement it in a natural, maintainable, and testable manner, making web development fun, fast, and rewarding. Everything that your web application needs to do is only written once; you connect to the database in one place, have configuration in one place, etc. Then, you just write actions for each URL that your application needs, without worrying about the database connections or HTML to produce. Catalyst will handle the details so you can worry about writing your application. Catalyst is designed to be reliable. There are hundreds of production applications and thousands of users. The code is well-tested, and new releases almost always maintain compatibility with applications written for older versions. You don't have to worry about Catalyst breaking your application and slowing down your development. It just works. Most importantly, Catalyst has a thriving community. You can ask a question on the IRC channel and get a response at almost any time of the day. This book embodies Catalyst's philosophies of Do It Yourself and Don't Repeat Yourself. What you will learn from this book? Installing and setting up CatalystHow MVC works in Catalyst, explained with a simple exampleUsing the Template toolkit to generate HTML outputDesigning a database schema and accessing a SQLite database Creating a CRUD interface to a databaseUsing FormBuilder to define auto-generating and self-validating forms Creating easy-to-maintain configuration filesImporting CVS files into a databasePaginating search resultsUsing the session plug-in to add sessions to an applicationAuthentication and authorization, explored by implementing page-level and record-level controlBuilding an editable web interfaceFeatures of DBIC for easy handling of dataInterfacing to your data:Mixing a procedural interface with a relational DBIx::Class interfaceWriting a database interface without DBIx::ClassBuilding a custom Model without using any databaseAdding a REST API to allow other applications to access your applicationAdding AJAX interactivity to your applicationIncorporating RSS feeds in your applicationAutomated testing and the "Test-Driven Development" methodology, discussed in depthTechniques to test your Catalyst application easilyWriting tests for applications developed in this book with Mechanize and SeleniumPackaging your application:Manage dependencies and create packages easily using Makefile.PLCreate a unique configuration for each environmentHow to set up for a variety of web serversHow to make your application a self-contained file (PAR) Approach This book will guide you through the features of Catalyst using real-world examples and systematic code snippets. Who this book is written for? This book is for web developers with basic Perl skills who are new to Catalyst. If you are excited by Ruby on Rails but would like the features of Rails with the familiarity of Perl, pick this book and get started.Read More