What’s Next?
Thank you for following along on this guided tour! I hope
it has inspired you to see for yourself how Track Magic can
enhance your Rails development projects.
This guided tour has sampled some of the most interesting
features of Track Magic and Panorama, but there is plenty
more. Here are some additional Track Magic features you can
read about.
Downloading Subsets - If your Rails table
is large you have the option of selectively downloading
only a portion of the Rails data, for example only records
in California or data from the last three months. See
Downloading Data for more
information.
Local Field Configuration - In this guided
tour the local databases always had the same field
configuration as the Rails table they were connected to. In
other words, the local Panorama database had the same
fields in the same order as the Rails table. However, this
doesn't have to be the case. For example, you might not
want the local Panorama database to include "blob" fields
in the Rails table, or you might want the Panorama fields
to be in a different order than the fields in the Rails
table. To learn how to do this see Field Configuration.
Scratch Fields - Track Magic allows you to
set up extra fields based on calculations, or simply for
temporary scratch areas. See Field Configuration to
learn more.
Synchronization Modes - Track Magic has
three synchronization modes for uploading data:
Immediate, Manual and Off. This
guided tour used manual synchronization, the
default method. Immediate synchronization mode is
just that — changes are immediately uploaded to Rails as
soon as you make them. Off means that
synchronization is disabled, and changes cannot be written
back to Rails (read only). To learn more about these modes
see Uploading Data.
Associations - Rails allows you to define
associations between tables that are related to
each other. Track Magic understands the most common type of
association, has many/belongs to, and can help you
set up and use this type of association. To learn more see
Creating
Associations and Data Associations.
Validation - Your Rails model can include
validation that helps to keep invalid or inconsistent data
out of the database. Track Magic can help you add
validation code to your model, see Data Validation to learn
how. Track Magic also allows you to bypass validation
completely, allowing you to enter any value into any
field. See Uploading Data to see how
this is done.
Migrations - Migrations are a convenient
way for you to alter database structure in an orderly and
organised manner. Track Magic allows you to view all of the
migrations that have been applied to your Rails
application, and to "roll back" the application to an
earlier version (or "roll forward" to a newer version). See
Migrations and Extras.
Host Configuration - One of the strengths
of Rails is its ability to work with different host server
technologies (SQLite, MySQL, Oracle, etc.). Track Magic
makes it easy to work with multiple hosts, both local and
remote. To learn more see Managing Hosts.
MySQL Administration - If you are using a
MySQL server and have the appropriate privileges, Track
Magic includes tools for managing the server, including
viewing a list of databases on the server as well as
creating and removing databases on the server.