Lift Cookbook

Preface

This is a collection of solutions to questions you might have while developing web applications with the Lift Web Framework.

The aim is to give a single, short answer to a specific question. When there are multiple approaches, or styles, we’ll give you one solution, but will point you at alternatives in the discussion.

Chapter 1 will get you up and running with Lift, but in other respects, this cookbook is aimed at practitioners and the questions they have asked. If this is the first time you’ve heard of Lift, you’ll want to look at:

• Simply Lift
• Torsten Uhlmann’s Instant Lift Web Applications How-to (PACKT Publishing)
• Timothy Perrett’s Lift in Action (Manning Publications)

Contributors

I’ve mined the Lift mailing list for these recipes, but I’m not the only one. Recipes have been contributed by:

• Jono Ferguson, who’s a Scala consultant based in Sydney, Australia. He can be found lurking on the Lift mailing list and occasionally helps out with Lift modules. Find him at https://twitter.com/jonoabroad and http://underscoreconsulting.com.
• Franz Bettag, who’s been an enthusiastic Scala hacker for several years now. He joined the Lift team in January 2012 and actively tweets and blogs about his newest Scala adventures. Find him at https://twitter.com/fbettag.
• Marek Żebrowski.
• Peter Robinett, who’s a web and mobile developer and a Lift committer. He can be found on the Web and on Twitter.
• Kevin Lau, who’s a founder of a few web apps with a focus in AWS cloud, iOS, and Lift.
• Tony Kay.

You should join them: How to Add a New Recipe to This Cookbook tells you how.

Source

The text of this cookbook is at https://github.com/d6y/lift-cookbook.

You’ll find projects for each chapter on GitHub.

Updates

Follow @LiftCookbook on Twitter.

Software Versions

Except where otherwise indicated, the examples use Lift 2.5 with SBT 0.12 and Scala 2.9.

Lift 2.5 is also available for Scala 2.10.

Conventions Used in This Book

The following typographical conventions are used in this book:

Italic

Indicates new terms, URLs, email addresses, filenames, and file extensions.

Constant width

Used for program listings, as well as within paragraphs to refer to program elements such as variable or function names, databases, data types, environment variables, statements, and keywords.

Constant width bold

Shows commands or other text that should be typed literally by the user.

Constant width italic

Shows text that should be replaced with user-supplied values or by values determined by context.

Tip

This icon signifies a tip, suggestion, or general note.

Warning

This icon indicates a warning or caution.

Using Code Examples

This book is here to help you get your job done. In general, if this book includes code examples, you may use the code in this book in your programs and documentation. You do not need to contact us for permission unless you’re reproducing a significant portion of the code. For example, writing a program that uses several chunks of code from this book does not require permission. Selling or distributing a CD-ROM of examples from O’Reilly books does require permission. Answering a question by citing this book and quoting example code does not require permission. Incorporating a significant amount of example code from this book into your product’s documentation does require permission.

We appreciate, but do not require, attribution. An attribution usually includes the title, author, publisher, and ISBN. For example: “Lift Cookbook by Richard Dallaway (O’Reilly). Copyright 2013 Richard Dallaway, 978-1-449-36268-3.”

If you feel your use of code examples falls outside fair use or the permission given above, feel free to contact us at [e-mail].

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Acknowledgments

These recipes exist because of the many contributions on the Lift mailing list, where Liftafarians, as they are known, generously give their time to ask questions, put together example projects, give answers, share alternatives, and chip in with comments. Thank you.

I am indebted to the contributors who have taken the trouble to write new recipes, and to those who have provided corrections and suggestions.

You’ll see I’ve repeatedly referenced the work of Antonio Salazar Cardozo, Diego Medina, Tim Nelson, David Pollak, and Dave Whittaker. These are fantastic communicators: thank you guys.

It’s been a pleasure working with the O’Reilly team, and they have immensely improved the text. Thank you, especially Meghan Blanchette, Kara Ebrahim, and Kiel Van Horn.

Many thanks to Jono for all the encouragement and help.

To Jane, Mum, Dad: thank you. It’s amazing what you can do with a supportive family.