Phoenix 0.10.0 released with assets handling, generators, & more

Posted on March 9th, 2015 by Chris McCord

We released Phoenix 0.10.0 this weekend and we’re really excited to share the new features we’ve been working on. This release brings an asset build system powered by brunch, live-reloading of css/js/eex templates, form builders, and new Ecto integration with generators that lets you get up and running quickly.

There’s so much good stuff packed into this release, that it deserved a screencast so you can see it in action:

Live-Reload

Change any css, js, or EEx template, and watch the browser instantly reload with your changes. The best part is that we don’t need any browser plugin. Everything is powered by Phoenix channels and works regardless of your javascript tooling of choice. Try it out–you’ll love it.

Static Asset Handling

We’ve integrated Brunch for fast and simple asset compilation that Just Works. When you start your mix phoenix.server in development, a brunch process is run automatically alongside your endpoint and your assets in web/static/js and web/static/css will be compiled as the files change. Even better, with our new live-reload feature, those recompiles get reloaded in the browser for a streamlined development experience. We’ve also built Brunch integration in a way that will let you wire up your own asset system, such as Gulp, Grunt, Webpack, etc.

Out of the box, we support Sass and ES6 javascript compilation, but it’s very easy to extend your brunch-config.js with additional tools to support your asset workflow.

We’ve integrated Brunch for fast and simple asset

compilation that Just Works. When you start your mix phoenix.server in development, a brunch process is run automatically alongside your endpoint and your assets in web/static/js and web/static/css will be compiled as the files change. Even better, with our new live-reload feature, those recompiles get reloaded in the browser for a streamlined development experience. We’ve also built Brunch integration in a way that will let you wire up your own asset system, such as Gulp, Grunt, Webpack, etc.

Out of the box, we support Sass and ES6 javascript compilation, but it’s very easy to extend your brunch-config.js with additional tools to support your asset workflow.

This release brings two new protocols, Phoenix.HTML.FormData and Phoenix.Param that makes it simple to integrate your model layer with Phoenix’s new form and link builders. As a default, but optional dep, we now include Ecto integration through the phoenix_ecto project where you can see these two new protocols in action. Let’s check it out:

<%= form_for @changeset, @action, fn f -> %>
  <%= if @changeset.errors != [] do %>
    <p style="color: red">Oops, something went wrong!</p>
  <% end %>

  <p>
    <label>
      <span>Title:</span>
      <%= text_input f, :title %>
    </label>
  </p>

  <p>
    <label>
      <span>Rank:</span>
      <%= number_input f, :rank %>
    </label>
  </p>

  <p>
    <%= submit "Submit" %>
  </p>
<% end %>

form_for accepts an Ecto changeset here, but will support any data structure that implements the FormData protocol. With form builders, we inject the CSRF token for you automatically to verify requests and you can enjoy the new form input helpers, ie text_input, number_input.

In addition to forms, we now include a link function for building anchors in your templates:

<%= for post <- @posts do %>
  <tr>
    <td><%= post.title %></td>
    <td><%= post.rank %></td>

    <td><%= link "Show", to: post_path(@conn, :show, post) %></td>
    <td><%= link "Edit", to: post_path(@conn, :edit, post) %></td>
    <td><%= link "Delete", to: post_path(@conn, :delete, post), method: :delete %></td>
  </tr>
<% end %>

Notice how we able to write post_path(@conn, :show, post) instead of post_path(@conn, :show, post.id)? This is thanks to the new Phoenix.Param protocol that lets you define how resources should be converted to paths and URLs. You may have also noticed the method: :delete option. This will convert the link tag into a form submission, as a DELETE request, and will inject the CSRF token for you. It’s handy for quick links to delete or update a resource without having to build a form yourself.

Resource Generator

The Ecto integration includes a new mix phoenix.gen.resource task that bootstraps a model with boilerplate code generation that lets you get up to speed quickly with Phoenix and Ecto and start building applications right away. From a single command like:

mix phoenix.gen.resource Post posts title:string rank:integer

A migration file is created with the provided schema and the model, view, template, and controller files are generated for CRUD actions. It’s a great way to learn the basics of Phoenix and experience the latest and greatest Ecto features.

Upgrading from 0.9.x

See these 0.9.x to 0.10.0 upgrade instructions to bring your existing apps up to speed.

Get Involved

That’s Phoenix 0.10.0. In case you missed it in the previous release, we have done many improvements to our channel system, including support for 3rd party backends, starting with Redis. Now we have streamlined the development experience. We have some big announcements coming soon as we head towards 1.0, so keep up to date by subscribing to the phoenix-core and phoenix-talk mailing lists, and get involved on #elixir-lang IRC. Feel free to join in and ask questions, and provide help to others.

Happy coding!