EmberJS getting user profile information - ruby-on-rails

In my Rails API I am using JSONAPI structure which Ember expects by default.
I have a Rails route http://localhost:3000/profile which will return the currently logged in user JSON.
How do I make an arbitary request to this /profile endpoint in Emberjs so I can get my logged in user's JSON in my router's model() hook?
I tried following this guide here:
https://guides.emberjs.com/v2.10.0/models/finding-records/
And have this code:
return this.get('store').query('user', {
filter: {
email: 'jim#gmail.com'
}
}).then(function(users) {
return users.get("firstObject");
});
It is returning the incorrect user however. It also seems like it doesn't matter what the value of 'email' is, I can pass it 'mud' and it will return all users in my database.
Is there no way for me to make a simple GET request to /profile in my model() hook of my profile route in Ember?
Update
It has come to my attention that the filter thing in Ember is actually just appending a query parameter onto the end of the request URL.
So having my above filter, it would be like making a request:
GET http://localhost:3000/users?filter['email']=jim#gmail.com
Which doesn't help because my Rails doesn't know anything about filter query parameter.
I was hoping Ember will automatically find the user and do some black magic to filter the user to match email address for me, not me having to manually build extra logic in my Rails API to find a single record.
Hurrmmmmmmm...sure feels like I'm fighting against the conventions of Ember at the moment.
Update
Thanks to Lux, I finally got it working with the following approach:
Step 1 - Generate the User adapter:
ember generate adapter user
Step 2 - write the AJAX request in the queryRecord method override for User adapter
import ApplicationAdapter from './application';
import Ember from 'ember';
export default ApplicationAdapter.extend({
apiManager: Ember.inject.service(),
queryRecord: function(store, type, query) {
if(query.profile) {
return Ember.RSVP.resolve(
Ember.$.ajax({
type: "GET",
url: this.get('apiManager').requestURL('profile'),
dataType: 'json',
headers: {"Authorization": "Bearer " + localStorage.jwt}
})
);
}
}
});
Step 3 - make the model() hook request like so:
import Ember from 'ember';
export default Ember.Route.extend({
model() {
return this.get('store').queryRecord('user', {profile: true});
}
});

Well, query is for server side filtering. If you want it client-side use something like store.findAll('user').then(users => users.findBy('email', 'bla#bla.bla'));.
But this is not what you want. You have your server side filter. It's just under /profile. Not under /user.
However interesting is what /profile actually responds. A single-record-response or a multi-record-response. The best would probably a single-record-response since you only want to return one user. So how can we do this with ember? Well, we use store.queryRecord().
And because ember does not know anything about /profile we have to tell it ember in the user-adapter with something like this:
queryRecord: function(store, type, query) {
if(query.profile) {
return Ember.RSVP.resolve(Ember.$.getJSON('/profile'));
}
}
And then you can just return store.queryRecord('user', { profile: true })

Related

How do I save an Angular form to my ruby on rails backend?

I'm new to Angular. I've tried everything I know how and Google searches have surprisingly few tutorials on this particular question. Here's the last code I tried:
index.html
<form ng-submit="addArticle(articles)">
<input type="text" id="title" ng-model="newPost.title">
<input type="text" id="body" ng-model="newPost.body">
<input type="submit" value="Submit">
</form>
articles controller
app.controller('ArticlesCtrl', function($scope, Article) {
$scope.articles = Article.query();
$scope.newPost = Article.save();
});
articles service (rails backend)
app.factory('Article', function($resource) {
return $resource('http://localhost:3000/articles');
});
I can retrieve data just fine. But I can't submit any new data to the rails backend. On page load, the rails server error is:
Started POST "/articles" for 127.0.0.1 at 2015-02-08 18:26:29 -0800
Processing by ArticlesController#create as HTML
Completed 400 Bad Request in 0ms
ActionController::ParameterMissing (param is missing or the value is empty: article):
app/controllers/articles_controller.rb:57:in `article_params'
app/controllers/articles_controller.rb:21:in `create'
Pressing the submit button does nothing at all. The form basically does not work and the page is looking for a submission as soon as it loads.
I understand what the error says, that it's not receiving the parameters from the form. What I don't understand is what that should look like in my controller and/or form.
What am I doing wrong and how do I fix this?
Angular has a feature called services which acts as a model for the application. It's where I'm communicating with my Rails backend:
services/article.js
app.factory('Article', function($resource) {
return $resource('http://localhost:3000/articles/:id', { id: '#id'},
{
'update': { method: 'PUT'}
});
});
Even though the :id is specified on the end, it works just as well for going straight to the /articles path. The id will only be used where provided.
The rest of the work goes into the controller:
controllers/articles.js
app.controller('NewPostCtrl', function($scope, Article) {
$scope.newPost = new Article();
$scope.save = function() {
Article.save({ article: $scope.article }, function() {
// Optional function. Clear html form, redirect or whatever.
});
};
});
Originally, I assumed that the save() function that's made available through $resources was somewhat automatic. It is, but I was using it wrong. The default save() function can take up to four parameters, but only appears to require the data being passed to the database. Here, it knows to send a POST request to my backend.
views/articles/index.html
<form name="form" ng-submit="save()">
<input type="text" id="title" ng-model="article.title">
<input type="text" id="body" ng-model="article.body">
<input type="submit" value="Submit">
</form>
After getting the service setup properly, the rest was easy. In the controller, it's required to create a new instance of the resource (in this case, a new article). I created a new $scope variable that contains the function which invokes the save method I created in the service.
Keep in mind that the methods created in the service can be named whatever you want. The importance of them is the type of HTTP request being sent. This is especially true for any RESTful app, as the route for GET requests is the same as for POST requests.
Below is the first solution I found. Thanks again for the responses. They were helpful in my experiments to learn how this worked!
Original Solution:
I finally fixed it, so I'll post my particular solution. However, I only went this route through lack of information how to execute this through an angular service. Ideally, a service would handle this kind of http request. Also note that when using $resource in services, it comes with a few functions one of which is save(). However, this also didn't work out for me.
Info on $http: https://docs.angularjs.org/api/ng/service/$http
Info on $resource: https://docs.angularjs.org/api/ngResource/service/$resource
Tutorial on Services and Factories (highly useful): http://viralpatel.net/blogs/angularjs-service-factory-tutorial/
articles.js controller
app.controller('FormCtrl', function($scope, $http) {
$scope.addPost = function() {
$scope.article = {
'article': {
'title' : $scope.article.title,
'body' : $scope.article.body
}
};
// Why can't I use Article.save() method from $resource?
$http({
method: 'POST',
url: 'http://localhost:3000/articles',
data: $scope.article
});
};
});
Since Rails is the backend, sending a POST request to the /articles path invokes the #create method. This was a simpler solution for me to understand than what I was trying before.
To understand using services: the $resource gives you access to the save() function. However, I still haven't demystified how to use it in this scenario. I went with $http because it's function was clear.
Sean Hill has a recommendation which is the second time I've seen today. It may be helpful to anyone else wrestling with this issue. If I come across a solution which uses services, I'll update this.
Thank you all for your help.
I've worked a lot with Angular and Rails, and I highly recommend using AngularJS Rails Resource. It makes working with a Rails backend just that much easier.
https://github.com/FineLinePrototyping/angularjs-rails-resource
You will need to specify this module in your app's dependencies and then you'll need to change your factory to look like this:
app.factory('Article', function(railsResourceFactory) {
return railsResourceFactory({url: '/articles', name: 'article');
});
Basically, based on the error that you are getting, what is happening is that your resource is not creating the correct article parameter. AngularJS Rails Resource does that for you, and it also takes care of other Rails-specific behavior.
Additionally, $scope.newPost should not be Article.save(). You should initialize it with a new resource new Article() instead.
Until your input fields are blank, no value is stored in model and you POST empty article object. You can fix it by creating client side validation or set default empty string value on needed fields before save.
First of all you should create new Article object in scope variable then pass newPost by params or access directly $scope.newPost in addArticle fn:
app.controller('ArticlesCtrl', function($scope, Article) {
$scope.articles = Article.query();
$scope.newPost = new Article();
$scope.addArticle = function(newPost) {
if (newPost.title == null) {
newPost.title = '';
}
// or if you have underscore or lodash:
// lodash.defaults(newPost, { title: '' });
Article.save(newPost);
};
});
If you want use CRUD operations you should setup resources like below:
$resource('/articles/:id.json', { id: '#id' }, {
update: {
method: 'PUT'
}
});

Ember.js route for the current user's /settings page

A common pattern for a user's settings page would be for it to live at /settings.
In my Rails app, I'm accomplishing this on the API side by mapping get 'settings' to Settings#show and looking for the current_user's settings.
But on the Ember side, I'm stumped. There's no ID to use for the GET request, so I can't use the typical pattern of this.store.find('setting', params.id) within my route.
What's the "Ember way" of handling this sort of use case?
This has been discussed here: http://discuss.emberjs.com/t/fetching-single-records/529/3
The issue with loading a single record not based on an ID, is that you need to get back a DS.Model object as a promise. If you get back a record that's already in the client's memory you would now have two different objects representing the same record (type and id combination). Take this example:
var user123 = App.User.find(123);
var currentUser = App.findByUrl('/users/current'); //This is an imaginary method, i.e. Ember Data don't support it
notEqual(user123, currentUser, "The user objects can't be the same cause we don't know what the current user is yet");
Now we get this response from the server:
{
"user": {
"id": 123,
"name": "Mufasa"
}
}
Now currentUser and user123 both have id 123, but they are essentially different objects = very bad. This is why this approach wouldn't work.
Instead you will want to load a record array of users, listen for it to load, and then take the firstObject from the loaded records. Like this:
var users = App.User.find({ is_current: true });
users.one('didLoad', function() {
App.set('currentUser', users.get('firstObject');
});
$.ajax({
type: 'GET',
url: '/users/current',
success: function(payload) {
var store = this.store;
var userReference = store.load(App.User, payload.user);
App.set('currentUser', store.recordForReference(userReference));
}.bind(this)
});

Using a JSON user object for Authentication in AngularJS

So I've got an question about authentication and have been wondering how other people might handle this situation. I'm currently running an Angular app that is built on a Rails API.
So far for authentication I have a form that does a post to the Rails side which logs the user in and then sends them back to the Angular app on success. Once the cookie is set and the user is logged in, I'm able to access a user.json file which contains all the User information one might expect (Id, username, roles, rights, etc). Since verification all happens on Rails, if the user logs out then this information is removed. So the two states look like so...
Logged in
{
id: 99384,
name: "Username",
url: "//www.test.com/profiles/Username",
timezone: null,
rights: [ ],
roles: [
"admin"
],
}
Logged out
{
error: "You need to login or join before continuing."
}
So far I've seen all these millions of different ways to do auth for Angular, but it seems like nothing fits this type of method. So my question is, since the server is handling all of the verification, is there a way to just check if they user.json file is empty (displaying the error message) and if it is send the Angular app to the Rails login page? Is there really any point messing with Cookies, Tokens, etc when I can base it all on the JSON file?
You are already using cookies - the server is setting them. What you have done is a fairly standard way of doing things.
To check the json file, you can do something like this stub shows in your controller:
app.controller('AppControl', function($scope, $http, $location){
// Get the JSON file.
$http.get('/path/to/json/file')
.then(response){
if(response.data.error){
// redirect to login
$location.path('login');
}
else{
$scope.user = response.data;
// your app code here.
}
})
.catch(function (error){
// unable to reach the json file - handle this.
});
});
Of course, you should really move this out into a service so you can re-use it, and also cache the data, rather than getting the user every time you change route/page, but this gives you a vague idea.
EDIT Example factory:
.factory('User', function( $http ){
// Create a user object - this is ultimately what the factory will return.
// it's a singleton, so there will only ever by one instance of it.
var user = {};
// NOTE: I am assigning the "then" function of the login promise to
// "whenLoggedIn" - your controller code is then very easy to read.
user.whenLoggedIn = $http.get('user.json')
.then(function(response){
// Check to see if there is an error.
if (response.data.error !== undefined) {
// You could be more thorough with this check to determine the
// correct action (examine the error)
user.loggedIn = false;
}
else {
// the user is logged in
user.loggedIn = true;
user.details = response.data;
return user;
}
}).then; // <-- make sure you understand why that .then is there.
return user;
})
Usage in the controller
.controller('ExampleController', function($scope, User){
// It's handy to have the user on the scope - you can use it in your markup
// like I have with ng-show on index.html.
$scope.User = User;
// Do stuff only if the user is loggedin.
// See how neat this is because of the use of the .then function
User.whenLoggedIn( function (user){
console.log(user.details.name + " is logged in");
});
});
Because it's on the scope, we can do this in the html:
<body ng-controller="ExampleController">
<h1 ng-show="User.loggedIn == null">Logging in..</h1>
<h1 ng-show="User.loggedIn == true">Logged in as {{ User.details.name }}</h1>
<h1 ng-show="User.loggedIn == false">Not logged in</h1>
</body>
Here is an example on plunker where this is working.
Note the following:
If the user is/was already logged in, when you inject the service in the future, it won't check the file again. You could create other methods on the service that would re-check the file, and also log the user out, back in, etc. I will leave that up to you.
There are other ways to do this - this is just one possible option!
This might be obvious, but it's always worth saying. You need to primarily handle authentication and security on the server side. The client side is just user experience, and makes sure the user doesn't see confusing or conflicting screens.

MVC Web Api not getting called from javascript ajax

I have a Durandal/Hot Towel test app I'm trying to wire up. I have the below ajax call but I'm getting a 404 error.
GET http/.../api/Pizza/GetPizzasByOrderId?%22a8926610-a713-494c-bb15-46f6487a01c7%22 404 (Not Found)
I can manually change the url to:
http/.../api/GetPizzasByOrderId?orderId=a8926610-a713-494c-bb15-46f6487a01c7
It works. But I would like to know why the other call isn't working or more so, why is the ajax messing the parameter up in the URL and not as data like it does with complex objects. I have a get and a save that is working just fine. The get has zero params and the save is passing a complex object in.
C# Web Api Controller:
public class PizzaController : ApiController
{
[HttpGet]
public IEnumerable<Pizza> GetPizzasByOrderId(Guid orderId)
{
return DATA.GetPizzasByOrderId(orderId);
}
}
JAVASCRIPT:
var dataCall = $.ajax(config.getPizzasByOrderIdUrl, {
data: ko.toJSON(orderId),
type: "get",
contentType: "application/json"
});
Should I just change my JavaScript code to the below and be done with it or is there a better way to talk to the Api?
var getPizzasByOrderId = function (orderId) {
return Q.when($.getJSON(config.getPizzasByOrderIdUrl + "?orderId=" + orderId));
};
You could either use the code as you have it in that last code block, or you could pass in an object in place of your orderId as in the code block below. Either way, the difference is that the orderId parameter is being named.
var dataCall = $.ajax({
url: config.getPizzasByOrderIdUrl,
type: "GET",
data: {orderId : orderId},
});
In regard to why $.ajax() works fine for your POST, you can check this out pretty easily by running these two bits of code and viewing the requests that go across the wire. I recommend using google chrome.
Load a page that has jQuery loaded
Open the developer tools and go to the console
Enter the following code snippet
$.ajax("", {
data: {orderId: 123},
type: "get",
contentType: "application/json"
});
Switch to the network tab and click on the one that ends in ?orderId=123
Notice that it does have the data appended as query string parameters
In the snippet above, replace the "get" with "post"
After you hit enter, you should see another request on the network tab of the developer tools.
Notice that when changing nothing but the request type, the data is moved from the query string to the body. As noted in the comments, WebApi will pull from the body of the request and use the model binder to populate the complex object.

Angular resource - bind to Rails RESTful API

I was looking at AngularJs Resource documentation and it states that default actions
for accessing API are:
{'get': {method:'GET'},
'save': {method:'POST'},
'query': {method:'GET', isArray:true},
'remove': {method:'DELETE'},
'delete': {method:'DELETE'} };
This is a bit different from Rails RESTful API where we have index,show,new,create,edit,update and discard. Is there an "automatic" way
to bind these two without writing the path manually? Thanks!
ps. why remove and delete, where's put for update?
ngResource simply uses different names for usual REST conventions. So for example:
var User = $resource('/user/:userId', {userId:'#id'});
var user = User.get({userId:123}, function() {
// do something with user
});
In this example User.get()sends the following request GET /user/123 which Rails routing logic passes to UserController#show action.
Regarding the update method, you can simply create one yourself:
var User = $resource('/user/:id', {}, {
update: {
method: 'PUT'
}
}

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