creating-a-new-smart-answer.md

Creating a new Smart Answer

There are two methods for creating a new smart answer:

1. automatically - via a rails generator, and
2. manually.

Using the rails smart_answer generator

To automatically generate a skeleton smart answer use the provided rails generator...

$ rails generate smart_answer my_smart_answer

This will create an example flow, calculator, questions, outcome and landing pages.

The generated files do not constitute a complete set of all possible question types, and configuration options. However, they should be enough to get you started and to show how the various files work together.

To see a list of the files that the generator will create use either the --help or --pretend options, like this...

$ rails generate smart_answer --help
$ rails generate smart_answer my_smart_answer --pretend

Manually creating a new Smart Answer

This walks through the basics of manually creating a new Smart Answer.

1. Create a new skeleton flow

Start by creating a new file to hold the logic of our flow:

$ touch app/flows/example_smart_answer_flow.rb

Open the new file in your editor and copy/paste this skeleton flow:

class ExampleSmartAnswerFlow < SmartAnswer::Flow
  def define
    name 'example-smart-answer'
    content_id "<SecureRandom.uuid>"
    status :draft

    value_question :question_1? do
      next_node do
        outcome :outcome_1
      end
    end

    outcome :outcome_1
  end
end

This flow contains a single question and a single outcome. Any non-empty response to :question_1? will send you to :outcome_1.

If you were to run rails server and visit http://localhost:3000/example-smart-answer at this point, you'd see an error that indicates that we need to add a landing page template.

2. Create an ERB landing page template

Create a new file for our landing page template.

$ mkdir app/flows/example_smart_answer_flow
$ touch app/flows/example_smart_answer_flow/start.erb

Although the landing page template needs to exist, it doesn't actually need to contain anything!

Assuming you're still running rails server, visit http://localhost:3000/example-smart-answer and you should see the empty landing page of our new Smart Answer.

Open the new landing page template your editor and copy/paste the following content:

<% text_for :title do %>
  Smart Answer title
<% end %>

<% govspeak_for :body do %>
  Landing page body.
<% end %>

Refresh the Smart Answer in your browser to see this new content.

Read more about landing page templates.

Click "Start now" to visit the first question. You should see an error message indicating that we're now missing an ERB template for our question.

3. Create an ERB question page template

Create a new file for our question page template.

$ mkdir app/flows/example_smart_answer_flow/questions
$ touch app/flows/example_smart_answer_flow/questions/question_1.erb

Although the question page template needs to exist, it doesn't actually need to contain anything!

Assuming you're still running rails server, visit http://localhost:3000/example-smart-answer and you should see an empty page containing a text field and a "Continue" button.

Open the new question page template in your editor and copy/paste the following content:

<% text_for :title do %>
  Question page title
<% end %>

<% govspeak_for :body do %>
  Question page body.
<% end %>

Refresh the Smart Answer in your browser to see this new content.

Read more about question page templates.

Enter any value in the text field and click "Continue". You should see an error message indicating that we're now missing an ERB template for the outcome.

4. Create an ERB outcome page template

Create a new file for our outcome page template.

$ mkdir app/flows/example_smart_answer_flow/outcomes
$ touch app/flows/example_smart_answer/outcomes/outcome_1.erb

Although the question page template needs to exist, it doesn't actually need to contain anything!

Assuming you're still running rails server, visit http://localhost:3000/example-smart-answer and you should see an empty page containing a list of "Your answers".

Open the new outcome page template in your editor and copy/paste the following content:

<% text_for :title do %>
  Outcome page title
<% end %>

<% govspeak_for :body do %>
  Outcome page body.
<% end %>

Refresh the Smart Answer in your browser to see this new content.

Read more about outcome page templates.

And that's all there is to an incredibly simple Smart Answer.