Looking for general guidance on design/architecture of this in rails.
Use-case / Goal:
User can go to website, and search for a list of Mortgages (the model in the database):
User will select a single mortgage
After selecting, they will receive a QR Code on the screen which is the URL for the MortgageController#show method for the particular Mortgage that was chosen.
To emphasize: When they select the mortgage, they won't go to the MortgageController#show, rather they need to be returned a page containing a QR code which represents the URL to the proper MortgageController#show for the mortgage they selected.
Context: The QR-code page will be printed, scanned --along with the physical mortgage files-- into a document imaging system. The document imaging system will parse the QR Code, hitting the MortgageController#show, receiving JSON "describing"/representing that particular scanned Mortgage. (Using Qr-code leading to JSON, rather than the raw JSON, as scanners do better with QR-codes than text.).
I think I pretty well understand the MortgageController#show side of things -- it's just returning a JSON representation of the model Mortgage.
Things get fuzzy:
I imagine where the user will search/select a mortgage could be the MortgageController#index method.
But if I have a get QR Code link for each Mortgage, should it hit a custom method on the MortgageController like qr_code, which determines the proper URL which needs to be made into a QR code and returned?
I'm not sure how to organize the part that generates a QR Code pointing to the show method of MortgageController, and how the plumbing of this will work. Is it possible to know from a list of Models, which one was selected from a link, or form_for tag, if that link doesn't go to the standard show method of the controller? (Because I cannot use that method... that's the one that will be returning JSON!)
I'm pretty mixed up about this, and am new to Rails. Any ideas are appreciated!
I'll try to answer all of your questions:
Yes, the action listing the mortgages should be MortgageController#index
For the QR view, you have several choices. One way, probably the most REST-pure, you'll call MortgageController#show on that particular mortgage, using format: :qr, a MimeType you'd define for the occasion (the URL would be /mortgages/2.qr and the path in the form_for block would be mortgage_path(mortgage, format: :qr). In the controller side, you'd handle this using the respond_to |format| structure.
Another simpler option would be to define a non-REST action to present the QR: MortgageController#qr_code. That action you'd define like this on your routes.rb file:
resources :mortgages do
get :qr_code, on: :member
end
As a bonus track (not included in your question), you can use rqrcode_png gem to generate and print the QR codes in the /mortgage/3/qr_code view.
Related
I am trying to find the correct template and id to use for a hotprint of an advanced pdf template of an Item Fulfillment.
The hot print url is (with the id bolded) https://system.na3.netsuite.com/app/accounting/print/hotprint.nl?regular=T&sethotprinter=T&id=7600&label=Packing%20Slip&printtype=packingslip&trantype=itemship&orgtrantype=TrnfrOrd&auxtrans=7605
For some reason only certain id=# seems to affect the outcome and the ids I have got to work for two different templates don't match the Custom Transaction Forms ID or the Advanced pdf script id. (example most ids=template 1, while 168,4954, and seemingly random other ids=template 2) I am very confused on how netsuite resolves the hot print url as it normally doesn't include the template= part though I have seen others use it for invoice print urls.
The parameters at the end of the url (the stuff after the ?) are used by Netsuite to control settings used by the webpage which prints the PDFs for you.
In this case, &id=##### refers to the internal id of the document you are printing. You can see this by going to the document, right clicking, selecting inspect, and typing nlapiGetRecordId() into the console. When you click Print, you should see that same number after &id=#####.
&template=### refers to the template you are printing. If you go to Customization -> Forms -> Advanced PDF/HTML Templates, you'll notice a Script ID field in the table. If you substitute the correct Script ID in for the number in &template=###, you'll notice you generate the same PDF. This Script ID acts the same as the number that was previously there.
The reason you're seeing unusual results when you change those numbers is because you're mismatching a record with a template not built for it. So it won't print exactly right, but will sometimes execute anyways.
Anyways, this sort of parameter scheme is a similar scheme to how Suitelets and Restlets work, so in the future, you might experience this sort of thing again.
EDIT: For those reading this in the future, please read the comments.
To customize a packing slip and return form:
If you are printing packing slips and need some customization, you can use a custom invoice form when printing packing slips. For example, you can customize an invoice form to hide the fulfilled item tax rate and amount, and the order total. Then, when you print the packing slip using the custom form through mass print, choose the the packing slip shows the customized information.
I've read everything I can on forms and such and they never seem to work the way I want them to.
As a work around, I'm trying to pass a series of parameters to my controller via remote: true and javascript. I've got a solid foundation working.
I can't think of a proper way to explain this without getting too crazy, so I'll just explain what I am doing.
Goal-
I have a FlashCard model going. The flash cards each have: Title, lines(7) and a body. The body is represented as the back of the card. The front of the card consists of the title and 7 lines. Each line can be written on individually and optionally centered. The card can be formatted as either read or write. Obviously read is a read-only and write gives you the ability to change whether or not each line is centered, and change/add the text on the title, each line, and the body.
Now. I probably chose a bad way to do this, but it's how I chose to do it. I have an affinity towards arrays so I tend to use those when in doubt.
My flash card model has title:string, line:string as array, and body:text.
The line is formatted as follows: [["",0],["",0],["",0],["",0],["",0],["",0],["",0]]
The strings are the string on each line and the 0's can be either 0 or 1, as false and true- representing whether or not the text on that line is centered.
As far as displaying all of this, I have it working just fine. However- actually saving the data is proving to be a problem. Forms are not working out for me because of the line array/attribute. I don't mind doing the logic myself without the form, but I need a way to pass the data from the text_fields to the controller to save them.
Hopefully that makes sense. If not- I will happily add in the code I have used to get to where I am and more specifically show where I am having problems.
Optimally, I would like to simply pass the strings from multiple text_fields as separate parameters to the controller. If necessary to go back and entirely redo the model, I will do so if it will work as long as I can get the same functionality.
Thanks in advance for the help!
My SEO-people do not write code. All they love is creating good texts. All they can do is pasting texts do database via some nice forms.
The problem is that sometimes they ask me: we need to put the text into page footer. Wee need to put some other text into page header.
And I just can not edit the code every time SEO-man asks me!
And sometimes the text are not related directly to model. I think you will understand me that it is a bad idea to create footer_block field inside a Car or Person model.
How nice it would if there was a gem that could:
Load text data from database by key (for example 'FOOTER_BLOCK'). To let me not to turn the models into a mess!
Give us forms where a SEO-person could paste the text
(Would be nice) Give us a WISIWIG editor.
PS: An example of such functionality (but not in Ruby): I used to code in python/Django. And we used django-flatblocks package - it did fit these 3 criterias.
I don't know any gem which will do this, but hopefully I can shed some light on how you might be able to achieve it
Code Blocks
You could create a table (and model) called code_blocks. The schema may look like this:
code_blocks
id | title | body | created_at | updated_at
This will allow you to create any number of records in this table that you want, and then call them from your app without the need for specific controller actions
Display
You could do this:
#app/helpers/application_helper.rb
def code_block(id)
block = CodeBlock.find(id)
return block.body
end
This may be inefficient, but it will allow you to include the code blocks whereever you want on the page, independent of the controller actions
So, for example, you have a footer block with id as 3, you could put:
<%= code_block(3) %>
Editing
This will mean that if you have a simple backend form, you can set it up so that you list the blocks by title, and allow the SEO guys to edit the HTML with a WYSIWYG editor (saving the HTML in the body column)
I have been banging my head over this for the past 3 days (No kidding!!!)....It seems like a very simple thing but I am just unable to do it. So I'm putting the question out here, and am open to any method which would work.
BACKGROUND : An advanced search form on submission used to generate an URL too large for the server. So the form had to be submitted via POST. So far, so good. Form submitted successfully, and the result was displayed. Only remaining problem was pagination.
As it's a POST call, it ruled out will pagination. While will-pagination merges param page to the existing params, but the problem is that it shows on url which results in the same error.
QUESTION: So is there any way, if the user clicks a link NEXT, I can
a) Update the page param
b) Keep the existing params
c) While not changing the URL
d) Transfer control back to the action in controller?
The only solution so far suggested was have a hidden form, repopulate it's value and submit again. The form's pretty complex, so if there is a cleaner way I'd like to know.
I see what you want from your comment. So editing my reply accordingly. You want the information as to which column is being selected in the sort to be available to the controller without having that information available in the url string, and you want to use GET for this not POST
The challenge you have is that you want to preserve state between requests and you need a mechanism for doing this. POST preserves that information by sending it in the body of the POST request. GET does this by allowing you to populate the query string. The other method for preserving state is to use a cookie.
You can manipulate the url with javascript on the page. There are tutorials online for that.
But if you just want a simple controller hack as you say in your comment then the simplest one I can think of is to allow the user to make the GET request to the url with the query params in it, then handle this request in two steps - step one saves the query information to the cookie, step two redirects them to the url with that query string data stripped, and you look on the cookie to see if it has those fields before building your data for that page. It's hacky but it works.
def sort
session[:sort] = params[:sort]
redirect_to url_without_the_query_string
end
There is also the new html 5 feature:
window.history.replaceState(“Replace”, “Page Title”, “/mypage”);
from this stackoverflow answer here: How to remove query string from url using javascript
However I'm not sure I'd recommend messing with the url after load like that (I don't know enough about that solution so I'd recommend you read that answer and see if that fits). So, if you MUST lose that data from the url string, because you need to somehow pass it between requests you either have to use POST, or use the session cookie/redirect method I describe above.
Does your html <form> have an action attribute? If not, add one that points to the page.
If you want to preserve the current GET params so that results from the POST can use , you will also need to modify the javascript triggered on the heading links so that as well as (or instead of) modifying the query string, they write the same data to hidden form fields (which of course then get posted in the body of the request). Your JS library may already include helpful functions for that.
I'm fairly familiar with REST principles, and have read the relevant dissertation, Wikipedia entry, a bunch of blog posts and StackOverflow questions on the subject, but still haven't found a straightforward answer to a common case:
I need to request a resource to display. Depending on the resource's state, I need to render either a read-only or an editable representation. In both cases, I need to GET the resource. How do I construct a URL to get the read-only or editable version?
If my user follows a link to GET /resource/<id>, that should suffice to indicate to me that s/he needs the read-only representation. But if I need to server up an editable form, what does that URL look like? GET /resource/<id>/edit is obvious, but it contains a verb in the URL. Changing that to GET /resource/<id>/editable solves that problem, but at a seemingly superficial level. Is that all there is to it -- change verbs to adjectives?
If instead I use POST to retrieve the editable version, then how do I distinguish between the POST that initially retrieves it, vs the POST that saves it? My (weak) excuse for using POST would be that retrieving an editable version would cause a change of state on the server: locking the resource. But that only holds if my requirements are to implement such a lock, which is not always the case. PUT fails for the same reason, plus PUT is not enabled by default on the Web servers I'm running, so there are practical reasons not to use it (and DELETE).
Note that even in the editable state, I haven't made any changes yet; presumably when I submit the resource to the Web server again, I'd POST it. But to get something that I can later POST, the server has to first serve up a particular representation.
I guess another approach would be to have separate resources at the collection level:
GET /read-only/resource/<id> and GET /editable/resource/<id> or GET /resource/read-only/<id> and GET /resource/editable/<id> ... but that looks pretty ugly to me.
Thoughts?
1) It is perfectly valid to have two distinct resources, one for viewing and one for editing some domain concept. Just be aware that because they are two different URIs from REST's perspective they are two different resources. Too often people conflate resource with domain object. That's why they end up being stuck only doing CRUD.
2) Don't get too hung up on the name of the resource. The important thing is that you realize that what the URI points to is a "thing", "a resource". If that's more obvious to you with editable instead of edit then use that. Having a verb in your URL doesn't make your application wrong, it just makes it a bit less readable to the human developer. Using a verb in the URL to try and redefine the semantics of the HTTP method, now that's a violation of the uniform interface constraint.
In REST, editing an existing resource is accomplished by a client GET-ing a representation of that resource, making changes to the representation, and then doing a PUT of the new representation back to the server.
So to just read a resource your REST client program would do a:
GET http://www.example.com/SomeResource
And to edit that resource:
GET http://www.example.com/SomeResource
... edit it ...
PUT http://www.example.com/SomeResource
Normally simultaneous updates are handled by letting the last PUT arriving at the server overwrite the earlier ones, on the assumption that it represents a newer state. But in your case you want to guard against this.
Carefully consider #Jason's suggestion to maintain an optional parallel lock resource for each main resource. Your client would first create the lock, do the edit, then delete the lock. Your system would need to release a lock automatically if the user making the lock subsequently never saves any changes. This would look like:
GET http://www.example.com/SomeResource
... user presses an edit button ...
PUT http://www.example.com/SomeResource/lock
... user edits the resource's representation ...
PUT http://www.example.com/SomeResource
DELETE http://www.example.com/SomeResource/lock
You'd need to do some appropriate error handling if the user is trying to edit a resource that's locked by someone else.
It sounds like you feel you're constrained by the current limitations of HTML. If you use a server-side REST framework like Restlet (for Java), it supports the notion of "overloaded POST", where you can use POST but tack on a query string argument like method=PUT or method=DELETE. If you're writing your own server-side components they can use this trick too.
There are tricks you can play at the HTML level too. For instance your page can have a read-only part that's initially displayed, and an input form that's initially not shown. When the user presses the edit button, your JavaScript hides the read-only part and shows the input form.
Be sure to read Richardson and Ruby's Restful Web Services (O'Reilly) too. It's extremely helpful.
I don't think returning a form or just values is up to a REST server, but the responsibility of the client. Whether a resource is editable is a property of the resource, and not something defined by the URL.
In other words: The URL for getting the resource is GET /resource/<id>. This has a property editable. If a user wants a form it can retrieve the resource from the same URL and populate the form. The client can than PUT/POST changes.
How do I construct a URL to get the read-only or editable version?
There's an underlying problem here, which is that you are constructing URLs in the first place - appending IDs to hard-coded URLs is not REST. Roy Fielding has written about this very mistake. Whichever document prompts you to edit the resource should contain the URI to the editable variant of that resource. You follow that URI, whether that's /resource/editable or /editable/resource is outside the scope of REST.
If instead I use POST to retrieve the editable version, then how do I distinguish between the POST that initially retrieves it, vs the POST that saves it?
You perform a GET (not a POST) to read the resource, and POST (or PUT) to write the resource.
If you want to create a lock on the resource in question, use POST to write to the resource (or the resource's container, with the resource ID encoded in the body of the POST), and have the server create a lock as a new resource, and return an ID of that resource as the response to the POST. (with authentication issues beyond the scope of your question or this answer)
Then to unlock the lock, either use a DELETE on the lock resource, or POST to the lock's container.
I guess your question could be "how to identify the readonly representation that return with GET action in PUT action?". You could do this:
<Root>
<readonly>
<p1><p1>
...
<readonly>
<others>
...
<others>
<Root>
After parsing the request XML from PUT you can ignore the readonly part and process others. In Response, return 200 status and leave a message saying the part in readonly is ignored.
Is it your expected?