Moving forward with the Alpha Release of Rails 7, which I’m sure many of us were really thrilled about, Rails 7 is getting what they call, a major “facelift” on the front-end and how we do JavaScript.
The release brings very exciting new features along with a triple threat for the modern web which we’ll be powering through in this blog post so keep on reading!
Rails’ full-stack strategy has been a leading factor in its success, but yet poses confusion as to what’s enough to include and what’s not. Regardless, Rails 7’s alpha release has brought on some massive changes with a comprehensive list of tools shipped in the box.
Something that intrigued me the most was what David Hansson refers to as the “triple threat” in his Alpha preview video, a gamechanger for the modern web which includes:
- Advancements in browser support for ES6/ESM (required to escape the transpiling step)
- Widespread adoption of HTTP/2 (makes bundling no longer necessary)
- Import maps
Rails 7 will default to import-mapped Hotwire
That’s right. After almost 5 years with Webpacker as the default to writing modern JavaScript in Rails, it’s being replaced alongside Turbolinks and Rails UJS (Unobtrusive JavaScript) with import maps plus Hotwire combination of Turbo and Stimulus.
With import maps, JavaScript modules can be imported directly from the browser using logical names that map to versioned/digested files, making it far more cache-compatible.
You can create modern JavaScript applications using JavaScript libraries made for ESM without Webpacker or any other form of bundling or transpiling. The new standard for import maps forms a no-Node approach to JavaScript in Rails 7.
Turbo has progressed with form submissions, frames, and streams, allowing users to introduce dynamic elements without having to write custom JavaScript, if at all. This replacement offers a complete alternative to chunky JavaScript client-side apps.
A point of concern that David addressed in his recent blog post was a way to allow users to rely on npm modules. The solution: JavaScripts CDNs. Import map for Rails is designed to be used with JavaScript CDNs for your node package dependencies.
Improved Integration between Rails & JavaScript + CSS bundlers
Another exciting update in the Alpha 1 release is the dramatically improved integration between Rails & JavaScript + CSS bundlers through the release of 2 new gems, jsbundling-rails and cssbundling-rails. This is useful for people who still require some form of transpiled JavaScript. As David elaborates in his Alpha preview video, Rails 7 ships with a better approach compared to the previous version with Webpacker. The integration between Rails and JavaScript bundler/transpiler is quite thin, taking advantage of the JavaScript ecosystem for the initial build.
jsbundling-rails gem fast tracks your new Rails application with the bundler of your choice: esbuild, rollup.js, or Webpack to bundle your JavaScript and deliver it through the asset pipeline in Rails.
Meanwhile, you can make use of the cssbundling-rails gem to bundle and process CSS in Rails with Tailwind CSS, Bootstrap, Bulma, PostCSS, or Dart Sass.
At-Work Encryption With Active Record
Encrypted attributes have been added to Active Record that are declared at the model level, which means that your application can offer at-work encryption in addition to the traditional at-rest and in-transit coverage. This not only adds an extra layer of security but using Active Record Encryption lets you define what constitutes sensitive information at the code level.
Some of the additional features in this library quoted on GitHub include:
- Encrypt action text attributes
- Support ignoring case
- Work with encrypted and unencrypted data simultaneously.
- Configurable encryption schemes
- Support old encryption schemes while migrating existing encrypted data to a new scheme
- Compression
- Fixtures support
- Filter parameters based on encrypted attributes (to remove sensitive params from logs).
The Alpha 2 release of Rails 7 also comes with a load of new features and updates.
Const_missing has also been replaced with Zeitwerk, an efficient and thread-safe code loader for Ruby.
Server Timing Middleware has also made its way into Ruby on Rails. Used to surface any backend server timing metrics, Server-Timing header displays durations for all ActiveSupport::Notifications.
Check basic auth credentials before authenticate
While using http_basic_authentication_with, if you send a request to a controller protected by basic authentication with wrong credentials, the following error will be displayed:
NoMethodError: undefined method 'bytesize' for nil:NilClass
Allow link_to helper to infer link name from Model#to_s
With this PR, if your model defines #to_s you will no longer have to supply a second argument to link_to.
Of course, the list of the latest updates and improvements in Rails 7 continues to grow. Our team is looking forward to seeing what comes to the beta -> release candidate -> final train.
While we wait, do make sure to check out the full edition of Rails 7 Alpha 1 and Alpha 2.
This article is written by RubyConf Pakistan's community lead, Sabrina Malik.
