Building an messaging system from scratch with multiple recipients in rails 4 - ruby-on-rails

Question

Ive been trying to build an messaging system for my site which uses devise for authentication. The functionality it requires is to be able to send a message to either one or more recipients (preferably with a checklist form listing users as well). After searching for a while I found a couple gems such as mailboxer, but I didn't need all its features and wanted to build my own system for sake of learning (still a newbie at rails).
I have followed this ancient tutorial ( http://web.archive.org/web/20100823114059/http://www.novawave.net/public/rails_messaging_tutorial.html ). I realize this is a very old tutorial but it is the only one I could find which matched what I was trying to achieve.
I have followed the tutorial to a T and even copied and pasted the code from the tutorial after my code didn't work.
when trying to access http://localhost:3000/mailbox i get a NoMethodError in MailboxController#index
undefined method `messages' for nil:NilClass
app/controllers/mailbox_controller.rb:12:in `show'
app/controllers/mailbox_controller.rb:6:in `index'
I have also referenced this question Rails 3: undefined method messages for Folder which had the same error as me but the topic just seemed to go no where.
mailbox_controller.rb
class MailboxController < ApplicationController
def index
#folder = current_user.inbox
show
render :action => "show"
end
def show
#folder ||= current_user.folders.find_by(params[:id])
#messages = #folder.messages :include => :message, :order => "messages.created_at DESC"
end
end
models/folder.rb
class Folder < ActiveRecord::Base
acts_as_tree
belongs_to :user
has_many :messages, :class_name => "MessageCopy"
end
Any help with this would be awesome, also just let me know if you need any more info and will post it.

Answer 1

I ended up figuring out the messaging system with a few modifications. I wanted to post my whole solution since it gave me a difficult time and might be useful to others. I kept it very simple and did not include the the folder model which was giving me the problem in the first place, but none the less it is functioning.
Heres are my associations
model/message.rb
attr_reader :user_tokens
belongs_to :sender, :class_name => 'User'
has_many :recipients
has_many :users, :through => :recipients
def user_tokens=(ids)
self.user_ids = ids
end
model/recipient.rb
belongs_to :message
belongs_to :user
model/user.rb
has_many :messages, :foreign_key => :sender_id
This is my messages controller
messages_controller.rb
def new
#message = Message.new
#user = current_user.following
#users = User.all
# #friends = User.pluck(:name, :id).sort
end
def create
#message = current_user.messages.build(message_params)
if #message.save
flash[:success] = "Message Sent!"
redirect_to messages_path
else
flash[:notice] = "Oops!"
render 'new'
end
end
def index
#user = User.find(current_user)
#messages = Recipient.where(:user_id => #user).order("created_at DESC")
end
private
def message_params
params.require(:message).permit(:body, :sender_id, user_tokens: [])
end
My Views
_form.html.erb
</div>
<!-- displays the current users frinds their following -->
<%= f.select :user_tokens, #user.collect {|x| [x.name, x.id]}, {}, :multiple => true, class: "form-control" %>
<br>
<div class="modal-footer">
<%= f.button :submit, class: "btn btn-primary" %>
</div>
Schema
messages_table
t.text "body"
t.integer "sender_id"
t.datetime "created_at", null: false
t.datetime "updated_at", null: false
t.string "body_html"
recipients_table
t.integer "message_id"
t.integer "user_id"
t.datetime "created_at", null: false
t.datetime "updated_at", null: false
I hope this helps.