I’m trying to enable image uploads for a model in my Rails app. I’m using the CarrierWave gem, but in order to do any image manipulation like thumbnail resizing I must have Imagemagick installed on the actual computer for use with the Rmagick gem.
Here’s the problem: I’m turning this app over to a painter who will log in and upload her own art. This means she won’t be in my development environment that has Imagemagick installed. I’m really confused about the role of Imagemagick here – will image manipulation simply not work anymore when the app is deployed, or does it persist somehow?
Feel free to correct me if my understanding of this is completely screwy. Or, is there a better solution available?
When you ‘turn over’ your app to the painter what this really means is that you’ll deploy your application to a platform like Heroku (i.e. a production environment) that will host your Rails app for you. If you choose Heroku, all will be well because their Rails setup includes Imagemagick and you don’t need to do anything.
The key here is to ensure that whatever provider you use to host your Rails app, they either have Imagemagick installed or it is an option for you to do that manually.
Personally I’d go with something like Heroku, it’s easy and the interface is slick and pretty. Here is their setup guide: https://devcenter.heroku.com/articles/rails3