= timecop-console

* http://github.com/jtrupiano/timecop-console

== Description

timecop-console exposes controllers/routes for manipulating Time.now (using the Timecop gem) from your app.  This is especially useful
during development and QA, as you can very easily simulate the movement of time.  Just as timecop gives you this ability within your tests,
you can now easily make this available to your dev and QA team through a debug console.

I have plans to build out rails-caddy, a debug console that will pull in timecop-console (and a few others that I'm thinking about) to
truly give you a powerful QA tool.

== Install
  sudo gem install timecop-console            (latest stable release)
  sudo gem install jtrupiano-timecop-console  (head of repository)
  
== Requirements
  * Timecop ~> 0.2.1

== How to Use

You'll want to hook in the functionality in the specific environments that you want this to load in (probably only development, staging, and qa).  In the specific environment file (e.g. config/environments/staging.rb), include the following snippet:

  config.after_initialize do
    require 'timecop_console'
  end

By requiring this file, you will open up ActionController::Base and inject an around_filter that will manage Time.now and friends for you.  Additionally, it will add lib/timecop-console/controllers/timecop_controller.rb to the load path along with its routes.  The two routes are:

  map.update_time '/timecop/update', :controller => 'timecop', :action => 'update'
  map.reset_time '/timecop/reset', :controller => 'timecop', :action => 'reset'

Then, to take advantage of this, you'll want to add a snippet of code to the bottom of your application's layout file, e.g.:

  <% if ["development", "staging", "qa"].include?(RAILS_ENV) -%>
    <div id="debug_console">
      The time is <%= Time.now.to_s(:db) %> |
      <% form_remote_tag :url => update_time_path do -%>
        <%= submit_tag "Time Travel" %>
        <% %w(year month day hour min sec).each do |field| -%>
          <%= text_field_tag field, Time.now.send(field), :size => 4 %>
        <% end -%>
      <% end -%>
      <%= link_to_remote "Reset", :url => reset_time_path %>
    </div>
  <% end -%>

This snippet exposes textfields to allow you to alter each component of time (year, month, day, hour, minute, second).  It's raw, and there is no validation whatsoever.  A default (and customizable) snippet like this will be added to this library shortly.  In the meantime, you can hand-write it.
  
== Copyright

Copyright (c) 2009 John Trupiano. See LICENSE for details.