Extending Rhoconnect Application with custom routes
===

Extending Rhoconnect Application with custom routes
---

You can provide custom routes support in your Rhoconnect application while you still fully utilize the powerful features provided by the default Rhoconnect server implementation. To do this, create a custom server class inherited from `Rhoconnect::Server` and define all of your custom routes in this extended server class.

The following example illustrates how to add a sample `my_custom_route' to the existing Rhoconnect application.

1) create `my_server.rb` class in your Rhoconnect application's root directory:

	:::ruby
	class MyServer < Rhoconnect::Server
	  get '/my_custom_route' do
	    if current_user
	      send_file 'public/my_file.png'
	    end
	    nil
	  end
	end

The above custom route implementation will respond to client's GET request, verifies the current_user (which will be extracted from the Rhoconnect session cookie)
and returns a static PNG file (which can be later used in BLOB syncs)


2) Replace the default server instance with the new extended one in the `config.ru` file of your Rhoconnect application:

	:::ruby
	# Setup the url map
	run Rack::URLMap.new \
		"/"         => MyServer.new,
		"/resque"   => Resque::Server.new, # If you don't want resque frontend, disable it here
		"/console"  => RhoconnectConsole::Server.new # If you don't want rhoconnect frontend, disable it here
		

Using the New Custom route in BLOB syncs
---

After you create the new custom routes and replace the default server instance with the new extended one, you can reference and use them from standard Rhodes applications.
For example, suppose you have a Rhodes app with a Product model. To use a custom route in BLOB syncs, define the following property in the Rhodes Product model (file: `app/Product/product.rb`):

	:::ruby
	# The model has already been created by the framework, and extends Rhom::RhomObject
	# You can add more methods here
	class Product
	  include Rhom::PropertyBag

	  # Uncomment the following line to enable sync with Product.
	  enable :sync

	  #add model specifc code here
	  property :my_custom_blob_field, :blob, :overwrite 
	end
	
To see the static image, modify the `app/Product/show.erb` file for the Product model in your Rhodes application:

	:::html
	<li>
        <div class="itemLabel">My Static Field Image</div>
        <div class="itemValue"><img src="<%=Rho::RhoApplication::get_blob_path(@product.my_custom_field)%>"></img></div>
    </li>
	
Then, modify your Rhoconnect source adapter (in `rhoconnect_app/sources/product.rb`) to provide BLOB's url for the `my_custom_blob_field`:

	:::ruby
	def query(params=nil)
    	parsed = JSON.parse(RestClient.get("#{@base}.json").body)

	    @result={}
	    parsed.each do |item|
	      item["product"]["my_custom_field-rhoblob"] = "http://localhost:9292/my_custom_route"
	      @result[item["product"]["id"].to_s] = item["product"]
	    end if parsed    
  	end

This way, your `my_custom_field` would be getting the BLOB image data from the custom route defined in your Rhoconnect extension server.

For more information on BLOB syncs, see [this section](http://docs.rhomobile.com/rhoconnect/blob-sync).