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https://github.com/cribbles/slipmat

Discogs clone, powered by Rails and Backbone
https://github.com/cribbles/slipmat

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Discogs clone, powered by Rails and Backbone

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README 

        
# Slipmat



[Live](http://slipmat.xyz)



## Summary



Slipmat is a near-faithful clone of [Discogs](http://discogs.com), the

Internet's largest database and marketplace for audio recordings. Slipmat

replicates most of the core functionality and UI components of Discogs's

inventory and user systems. The main difference is that Slipmat is designed

from the ground up as a single-page application.



### Languages:

- Javascript

- Ruby

- HTML / CSS



### Frameworks:

- Backbone

- Rails



### Libraries and Technologies:

- jQuery / AJAX

- jQuery-UI

- paperclip / AWS

- pg_search

- kaminari

- figaro

- jbuilder

- omniauth

- friendly_id



## What can I do on this website?



You can:

- Securely create an account

- Log in using Facebook or Google

- Edit your own profile

- Add records to your wantlist and collection

- Contribute new records to the database

- Contribute information about records, artists, and labels

- Update, sort, and customize tracklists (using jQuery sortable UI)

- Tag and sort records by genre

- Comment on records, artists, and labels



Slipmat provides an robust interface for browsing, searching, and sorting

records, artists, and labels. It features:

- Live search results in the header search bar

- Global, weighted search index for records, artists, and labels

- Stackable category filtering for records

  - Sort by year, genre, or country

- Tabbed and paginated index for records, artists, and labels



## API



Slipmat is powered by a RESTful JSON API.



I took great care to ensure correspondence between Backbone routes and API

endpoints. If you're on a page that displays data, you can replace the `#` in

the URI fragment at any time with `api` to see what's being served up for a

given view. This includes [search](http://slipmat.xyz/api/search?query=jackson)

and [sort](http://slipmat.xyz/api/records/search?genre=Electronic) results.



Many API responses handle nested data and associations. I made extensive use of

jbuilder to manage these. Nearly all Backbone models override the `parse` method

to keep track of nested associations.



I used Rails's counter caching and eager loading to optimize data retreival. API

responses are structured to prevent N+1 queries. I used model scoping with

`find_by_sql` as needed to minimize database fetching and keep controllers slim.



I structured user comments and contributions as polymorphic associations in

order to prevent bloat. This greatly reduced the overhead for my Rails models

and Backbone views.



## Slipmat.Import



Slipmat features a super handy [import

utility](app/assets/javascripts/utils/import.js), `Slipmat.Import`, for

constructing seed data based on real Discogs releases.



For my own convenience, I've bound it to a Backbone route. Visit

`#/import/(discogs release id)` if you want to try it out!



Here's how it works:



- `Import#import` takes Discogs release ID provided in the URI fragment as an

argument and fetches the release data from the [official Discogs

API](http://www.discogs.com/developers/) by making a GET request to the

release's API endpoint.

- On success, the payload is passed along to `Import#parse`. This parses the

Discogs data into Backbone model attributes, sets them on a new instance of

`Slipmat.Models.Record` and saves the record. This includes nested associations,

e.g. tracklist, genre taggings, artist and label.

- On success, the persisted model is passed along to `Import#fetchImage`, which

makes a separate GET request to the Discogs search engine, sending along the

artist name and album title as parameters.

- On success, the payload is scanned for the first associated thumbnail URI,

which is passed along to `Import#patchImage`. This updates the persisted model

by assigning the thumbnail to the its `image_url` attribute and saving it.



_N.B._ - under the hood, the Rails `Record` model doesn't really have an

`image_url` attribute. Instead, we override `#image_url=` like so:



```ruby

def image_url=(image_url)

  self.image = open(image_url)

end

```



This intercepts the thumbnail before saving the model and delegates the file

contents to Paperclip, which politely stores the thumbnail on AWS for us and

displays it normally (i.e. without image leeching).



## Future polishing touches (TBD)

- User activity / feed

- Git diff / wiki like updates for records, artists, and labels

- Comment on comments

- Multiple formats and releases (CD, Cassette, Reissue, Deluxe, etc.)

- Buy and sell records

- User messaging

- Ratings for records (5 star scale)

- Add records to lists (Best Reggae records of the 90s, etc.)



## License



Slipmat is released under the [MIT License](/LICENSE).



---

Developed by [Chris Sloop](http://chrissloop.com/)