Simple comments with voting and karma - ruby-on-rails

Question

I've tried every commenting gem out there and they pretty much all suck.
Take a look at this question I previously asked:Finding user total votes recieved on posts by other users
Per recommendation, I've decided to build my own commenting system from scratch.
Here is the goal:
To have a post model, user model(using devise), comment model.
The users can create comments. These comments are votable. The amount sum of votes users receive on the comments they made is their score or karma.
How do I implement something like this?
So far this is what I have:
I ran
rails generate model Comment commenter:string body:text post:references
The migration
class CreateComments < ActiveRecord::Migration
def change
create_table :comments do |t|
t.string :commenter
t.text :body
t.references :post
t.timestamps
end
add_index :comments, :post_id
end
end
In my comment model
class Comment < ActiveRecord::Base
belongs_to :post
attr_accessible :commenter, :body
end
In my post model
class Post < ActiveRecord::Base
has_many :comments
end
My routes file
resources :posts do
resources :comments
end
My comments controller
class CommentsController < ApplicationController
def create
#post = Post.find(params[:post_id])
#comment = #post.comments.create(params[:comment].permit(:commenter, :body))
redirect_to post_path(#post)
end
end
Within my posts show view
<h2>Comments</h2>
<% #post.comments.each do |comment| %>
<p>
<strong>Commenter:</strong>
<%= comment.commenter %>
</p>
<p>
<strong>Comment:</strong>
<%= comment.body %>
</p>
<% end %>
<%= form_for([#post, #post.comments.build]) do |f| %>
<p>
<%= f.label :commenter %><br />
<%= f.text_field :commenter %>
</p>
<p>
<%= f.label :body %><br />
<%= f.text_area :body %>
</p>
<p>
<%= f.submit %>
</p>
<% end %>
<%= link_to 'Edit Post', edit_post_path(#post) %> |
<%= link_to 'Back to Posts', posts_path %>
I really need help here: Instead of picking a commenter name, I need the controller to require the user to be logged in, and pass the current user as the commentor of the comment. How do I implement in place editing of a comment?
I then need to use either one of these gems to make the comments votable:
https://github.com/bouchard/thumbs_up
https://github.com/ryanto/acts_as_votable
Lastly I need to be able to calculate the total votes a given user has received on all of their posted comments. Something like #user.comments.votes.size

Answer 1

To handle assigning the current_user to the comment, first you'll need to change the commenter column to an id that references Users (I would also rename it to commenter_id). So, you'll want to generate the model like so:
rails generate migration ChangeCommentsCommenterToCommenterId
# db/migrate/<timestamp>_change_comments_commenter_to_commenter_id.rb
class ChangeCommentsCommenterToCommenterId < ActiveRecord::Migration
def change
remove_column :comments, :commenter
add_column :comments, :commenter_id, :integer, null: false
add_index :comments, :commenter_id
end
end
Or, regenerate the model from scratch:
rails generate model Comment commenter_id:integer:index body:text post:references
Note that I've added an index to the column. In your Comment model:
# app/models/comment.rb
class Comment < ActiveRecord::Base
belongs_to :post
belongs_to :commenter, class_name: 'User'
attr_accessible :body
end
Note that, since we're using belongs_to here, when you send the commenter message to an instance of Comment, you'll get back an instance of User.
Next you'll need to update your controller to make the proper user assignment. I would also recommend a bit of refactoring to private methods to make the implementation more expressive of the domain:
# app/controllers/comments_controller.rb
class CommentsController < ApplicationController
def create
post.comments.create(new_comment_params) do |comment|
comment.commenter = current_user
end
redirect_to post_path(post)
end
private
def new_comment_params
params.require(:comment).permit(:body)
end
def post
#post ||= Post.find(params[:post_id])
end
end
Since you're redirecting to post_path, I've assumed that you don't need to keep the #comment instance variable.
Finally, you'll want to remove the commenter field from the form in the view. Does that do the trick?
[EDIT: Adding this section to address the question about voting...]
I'm not completely clear on exactly what parts of the voting you're looking for help with, but at least from a high-level perspective, I'd guess you'd probably want a VotesController that's accessible from a nested route:
# config/routes.rb
...
resources :comments do
resources :votes, except: :index
end
Hope this helps!