Chapter 1, Getting Started with Shopify, covers the basic functionality of Shopify and then explains the difference between private and public apps. A brief overview of the API and webhook systems is provided. The chapter then wraps up with a few thoughts on how to get started with building an app.

Chapter 2, Setting Up, focuses on setting up the reader's development environment, installing Ruby, Rails, and a few other requisite Gems. It shows us how to create a standard Rails site, update it with Twitter Bootstrap, and check it with source control. The chapter wraps up with instructions on how to deploy to Heroku for scalable web hosting.

Chapter 3, Building a Private App, covers the integration with Shopify's API in order to retrieve product and order information from the shop. The UI is then streamlined a bit before the logic to create a contest is created.

Chapter 4, Going Public, shows us how to refactor the existing app to support multiple Shopify accounts simultaneously. It then shows us how to hook into the installation process as well as how to subscribe and process webhooks.

Chapter 5, App Billing and Publication, completes the app by adding a free and paid plan and demonstrates how to setup a recurring charge via the Shopify Billing API. The chapter wraps up by explaining the process for publishing the app in the App Store so that the storeowners can install it automatically.

You will need a computer capable of running Ruby and a text editor/IDE suitable for developing Rails. A Shopify and a Heroku account are required. It's recommended that an account with a source control service such as GitHub or Bitbucket be used for code management and back up.

This book is highly suited for Ruby developers who are interested in creating apps for fun and profit. Familiarity with Shopify is helpful but not required. Developers familiar with other web languages should be able to follow but would benefit from a Ruby Primer before reading this book.

Basic command line skills (Windows or Linux) are required as well, but these will be given in a format that can be copied and pasted as needed.

In this book, you will find a number of styles of text that distinguish between different kinds of information. Here are some examples of these styles, and an explanation of their meaning.

Code words in text, database table names, folder names, filenames, file extensions, pathnames, dummy URLs, user input, and Twitter handles are shown as follows: "To use Rails 4.0.0 with Heroku, we need to add the rails_12factor gem to the Gemfile so that we can precompile our assets."

A block of code is set as follows:

    def obscure_string(string, count)
        return string if count.blank?
        substring = string.slice(0..(-1 * count - 1))
        return string.gsub(substring, "*" * substring.length)
    end

When we wish to draw your attention to a particular part of a code block, the relevant lines or items are set in bold:

resources :products do
  collection do
    get 'import'
  end
  resources :variants
end

Commands that need to be entered at the terminal / shell window are set as follows:

gem install rails -v 4.0.0 --no-ri --no-rdoc

New terms and important words are shown in bold. Words that you see on the screen, in menus or dialog boxes for example, appear in the text like this: "You should see a Welcome aboard page that lists out some helpful tips as well as information about the application's configuration as shown in the following screenshot:".

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