Rails 3 increment the value of my counter with link_to - ruby-on-rails

Good morning,
In my Ruby On Rails application I am trying to build a stat counter for wins and for losses.
These stats are displayed in the sidebar of my page, which is always visible. For these values i use a model named Stats. The stats should be available global, since I want to display them on every side so they were put into application_helper.rb. I also have two actions, that should be called if you click on the add win / or add loss link, which is only displayed for admins. After clicking the link you get redirected to the main page. At the moment, both counters increase each time someone enters the site or refreshes it. Can you please help me, I am looking to solve this problem now for several hours and i still don't get it.
My application_helper
module ApplicationHelper
def stats
#stats = Stats.find(1)
end
def addwin
#stats = Stats.find(1)
#stats.update_attribute(:wins, #stats.wins+1)
end
def addloss
#stats = Stats.find(1)
#stats.update_attribute(:loss, #stats.loss+1)
end
end
An extract of my application.html.erb file, where the sidebar is located:
<tr><td>Dotards StatsTracker</td></tr>
<tr><td>Wins: </td><td style="color:green"><%= stats.wins%></td></tr>
<tr><td>Losses: </td><td style="color:red"><%= stats.loss%></td></tr>
<hr>
</table >
<%if user_signed_in? && current_user.admin? %>
<small><%= link_to "Add Win", news_index_path(addwin) %>|<%= link_to "Add Loss", news_index_path(addloss)%></small>
<% end %>
Would be awesome if someone could help me, because I don't know what else i can do.
Thank you very much in advance.

news_index_path(addwin)
calls the add win method directly on generation of the page, that's why the counter is increased.
move the two methods to an appropriate controller (maybe news_controller?) and create routes in config/routes.rb like this:
match '/addwin', to: 'news#addwin'
then you get path helpers which you can use like this:
link_to "Add Win" addwin_path
run rake routes to see the helper names generated.
addition: I would also consider your Singleton Stat into a model, and define methods there which are just used by the controller.

Related

Trying to get two actions to have different views, but the same URL

I have an app with shepherds (i.e. the users) and each shepherd has a set of animals. I am trying to make it so that if the logged in shepherd tries to view one of their animals it takes them to a view controlled by the edit action. Alternatively, if the shepherd tries to view another shepherd's animals it gives them a view controlled by the show action. I'd prefer to not have URLs with */edit - I want them to look the same for edit and show. In my routes.rb file I have this...
get '/shepherds/:username/:eartag', to: 'animals#show', as: :shepherd_animal_show
get '/shepherds/:username/:eartag', to: 'animals#edit', as: :shepherd_animal_edit
In the shepherd's show view I create a link to their animals like this...
<% if animal.shepherd == current_shepherd %>
<a href="<%= shepherd_animal_edit_path(username: animal.shepherd.username, eartag: animal.eartag) %>"
<% else %>
<a href="<%= shepherd_animal_show_path(username: animal.shepherd.username, eartag: animal.eartag) %>"
<% end %>
I can see that when I'm logged in and try to access my animals, it goes into the block with the shepherd_animal_edit_path, but it directs me to the show view rather than the edit view. Here's part of the output of the routes...
shepherd_animal_show GET /shepherds/:username/:eartag(.:format) animals#show
shepherd_animal_edit GET /shepherds/:username/:eartag(.:format) animals#edit
I'm a bit of a beginner at Rails and would really appreciate any help people can offer.
I think you should be using the show action for both, and just rendering a different template depending on the animal ownership. I.e.:
def show
...
render 'edit' if animal.shepherd == current_shepherd
# the show template will be rendered automatically if `render` wasn't explicitly called
end
Then in your view, you can unconditionally link to the show action, and the controller will take care of deciding which view template to render.
Also, FWIW, I would probably define the routes as follows:
resources :shepherds, shallow: true do
resources :animals
end
And then use the link_to helper in the view instead of hard-coding HTML tags:
<%= link_to animal_path(animal) %>
But that would then allow you to do other things like:
link_to shepherd_animals_path(#shepherd) # link to the `index` action of `AnimalsController`, with `params[:shepherd_id]` set to `#shepherd.id`.
That would then allow you to render (or not render) other controls for the shepherd to manage his/her own flock if current_shepherd.id == params[:shepherd_id] (or current_shepherd == Shepherd.find(params[:shepherd_id])).

Link to random record in header partial (rails)

I'm wondering how to create a "shuffle" button in the header partial of my rails app that links to a random record. I have a "pins" table and each pin is a video.
I've searched through stackoverflow and couldn't figure out how to do it..
I think it had to do with the header partial doesn't work with the Pins controller/model.
When someone clicks the button it should link to something like this:
website.com/pins/13
Any help would be great thanks!
EDIT:
This is the code I have previously tried:
offset = rand(Model.count)
rand_record = Model.first(:offset => offset)
But I am new to rails and I wasn't sure where to put it. I tried putting it in the model and the controller and both didn't work.
Ok, so I'm assuming that you want a link to a random Model to be shown each time a user loads a particular page. Let's say that the page that shows this link is the ModelController#index action.
Since the randomization only happens when the page is initially loaded, you can do it in the controller action:
class ModelController < ActionController::Base
#other actions
def index
#any other index code
#random_model = Model.order('random()').first
end
end
Now, in your view, you can link to that model in the usual manner:
<%= link_to("Shuffle", #random_model, :class => "btn btn-small btn-warning") %>
Every time that the controller action executes, it will pick a Model at random, and include a link to that Model when it renders the page.
Edited to address:
"Is there anyway to make it work without putting the code in the index and show actions?"
Yes. You can actually load the model right in the view code. Normally, assigning it to an instance variable in the controller is the 'more correct' method, but as you point out, it leads to duplication of code. If this is something you want to include in multiple views, I would recommend making it a partial. Something like so:
views/shared/_shuffle.erb:
<%= link_to("Shuffle", Model.order('random()').first, :class => "btn btn-small btn-warning") %>
And then rendering that partial in any page you want to include a randomized link:
<%= render 'shared/shuffle' %>
Note that if you render this partial more than once in a page, the random model will be different for each link.

How do I take this from the console to a controller and view

I'm learning Ruby on Rails (my first MVC) and have successfully setup a many-to-many relationship between "Agents" and "Zipcodes." What I'm trying to do currently is to get the associated agent based on the zip code entered by the user. I'm able to so successfully in the console, but am having a difficult time translating it to a controller and view.
What I do in the console:
zip = Zipcode.find_by_zip(gets.chomp)
=> 92562
zip.agents
The hangup I'm having is how to translate this into an action that I can access from a view with a form.
I've started by defining the action (agents#find), but am stumped as to whether this is correct and what comes after it.
def find
#user_zip = Zipcode.find_by_zip(params[:zip])
end
Hopefully someone awesome in here can point a n00b in the right direction.
When just starting with rails, I'd suggest avoiding custom actions like #find as much as possible, and instead sticking to the "Big 7" RESTful routes. Rails is really smooth when you work with it and do what it expects.
It sounds like maybe you're trying to identify a given zipcode, and then list all the agents associated with it. That sounds like a #show on Zipcode.
config/routes.rb
resources :zipcodes
app/controllers/zipcodes_controller.rb
ZipcodesController < ApplicationController
def show
#zipcode = Zipcode.find_by_zip(params[:id])
end
end
app/views/zipcodes/show.html.erb
<div>
<p>This zipcode has the following agents:</p>
<ul>
<%= #zipcode.agents.each do |agent| %>
<li>Agent #<%= agent.id %></li>
<% end %>
</ul>
</div>
You can see this page by browsing to /zipcodes/[zip].
Just put #user_zip = Zipcode.find_by_zip(params[:zip]) in the controller instead of the model.
In the view you will be able to call #user_zip.
Welcome to Rails! I recently started learning Rails as well, but I think I can help: A controller action will redirect by default to a view with the same name. So after assigning the value of #user_zip, the controller will serve up agents/find.html.erb, which will have access to #user_zip. Since #user_zip is an instance of Zipcode, you'd be able to use #user_zip.agents.
Somewhat tangential, but I also suggest considering using search rather than find for the action name, only because find and its variations are used elsewhere in Rails.

Basecamp API Rails

I was wondering if someone could do me massive favour..
I really don't understand how to make use of APIs - so I was wondering if, using Basecamp as an example, someone could talk me though the basics.
So far I have an application with a dashboard controller/view, I have put basecamp.rb into my /lib directory, added the following to my application_controller:
def basecamp_connect
Basecamp.establish_connection!('XXXXXX.basecamphq.com', 'USER', 'PASS', false)
#basecamp = Basecamp.new
end
Obviously changing the required parts to my credentials.
Next up I have added the following to my dashboard_controller:
def index
Basecamp::TodoList.find(:all)
end
Next I presume I have to somehow list the Todos on the dashboard using some sort of loop.
Am I doing the right thing, if so - how on earth do I display all the todo items and if not - what am I doing wrong/missing.
It doesn't have to be todos, anything from Basecamp or any other popular API service would be a good start. It's just that I happen to have a basecamp account!
Thanks,
Danny
Your view expects to have some variables defined. You can loop through those variables and display their content as you want.
So you could do, in your action :
def index
#list = Basecamp::TodoList.find(:all)
end
Then in your view you have access to the #list variable and you can to the following :
<ul>
<% #list.each do |item| %>
<li><%= item.to_json</li>
<% end %>
</ul>
Replacing the json dump by the elements as you wish to display them of course.
You might want to read the rails guides to get a lot more of informations.

How do I implement Section-specific navigation in Ruby on Rails?

I have a Ruby/Rails app that has two or three main "sections". When a user visits that section, I wish to display some sub-navigation. All three sections use the same layout, so I can't "hard code" the navigation into the layout.
I can think of a few different methods to do this. I guess in order to help people vote I'll put them as answers.
Any other ideas? Or what do you vote for?
You can easily do this using partials, assuming each section has it's own controller.
Let's say you have three sections called Posts, Users and Admin, each with it's own controller: PostsController, UsersController and AdminController.
In each corresponding views directory, you declare a _subnav.html.erb partial:
/app/views/users/_subnav.html.erb
/app/views/posts/_subnav.html.erb
/app/views/admin/_subnav.html.erb
In each of these subnav partials you declare the options specific to that section, so /users/_subnav.html.erb might contain:
<ul id="subnav">
<li><%= link_to 'All Users', users_path %></li>
<li><%= link_to 'New User', new_user_path %></li>
</ul>
Whilst /posts/_subnav.html.erb might contain:
<ul id="subnav">
<li><%= link_to 'All Posts', posts_path %></li>
<li><%= link_to 'New Post', new_post_path %></li>
</ul>
Finally, once you've done this, you just need to include the subnav partial in the layout:
<div id="header">...</div>
<%= render :partial => "subnav" %>
<div id="content"><%= yield %></div>
<div id="footer">...</div>
Partial render. This is very similar to the helper method except perhaps the layout would have some if statements, or pass that off to a helper...
As for the content of your submenus, you can go at it in a declarative manner in each controller.
class PostsController < ApplicationController
#...
protected
helper_method :menu_items
def menu_items
[
['Submenu 1', url_for(me)],
['Submenu 2', url_for(you)]
]
end
end
Now whenever you call menu_items from a view, you'll have the right list to iterate over for the specific controller.
This strikes me as a cleaner solution than putting this logic inside view templates.
Note that you may also want to declare a default (empty?) menu_items inside ApplicationController as well.
Warning: Advanced Tricks ahead!
Render them all. Hide the ones that you don't need using CSS/Javascript, which can be trivially initialized in any number of ways. (Javascript can read the URL used, query parameters, something in a cookie, etc etc.) This has the advantage of potentially playing much better with your cache (why cache three views and then have to expire them all simultaneously when you can cache one?), and can be used to present a better user experience.
For example, let's pretend you have a common tab bar interface with sub navigation. If you render the content of all three tabs (i.e. its written in the HTML) and hide two of them, switching between two tabs is trivial Javascript and doesn't even hit your server. Big win! No latency for the user. No server load for you.
Want another big win? You can use a variation on this technique to cheat on pages which might but 99% common across users but still contain user state. For example, you might have a front page of a site which is relatively common across all users but say "Hiya Bob" when they're logged in. Put the non-common part ("Hiya, Bob") in a cookie. Have that part of the page be read in via Javascript reading the cookie. Cache the entire page for all users regardless of login status in page caching. This is literally capable of slicing 70% of the accesses off from the entire Rails stack on some sites.
Who cares if Rails can scale or not when your site is really Nginx serving static assets with new HTML pages occasionally getting delivered by some Ruby running on every thousandth access or so ;)
You could use something like the navigation plugin at http://rpheath.com/posts/309-rails-plugin-navigation-helper
It doesn't do sub-section navigation out of the box, but with a little tweaking you could probably set it up to do something similar.
I suggest you use partials. There are a few ways you can go about it. When I create partials that are a bit picky in that they need specific variables, I also create a helper method for it.
module RenderHelper
#options: a nested array of menu names and their corresponding url
def render_submenu(menu_items=[[]])
render :partial => 'shared/submenu', :locals => {:menu_items => menu_items}
end
end
Now the partial has a local variable named menu_items over which you can iterate to create your submenu. Note that I suggest a nested array instead of a hash because a hash's order is unpredictable.
Note that the logic deciding what items should be displayed in the menu could also be inside render_submenu if that makes more sense to you.
I asked pretty much the same question myself: Need advice: Structure of Rails views for submenus? The best solution was probably to use partials.
There is another possible way to do this: Nested Layouts
i don't remember where i found this code so apologies to the original author.
create a file called nested_layouts.rb in your lib folder and include the following code:
module NestedLayouts
def render(options = nil, &block)
if options
if options[:layout].is_a?(Array)
layouts = options.delete(:layout)
options[:layout] = layouts.pop
inner_layout = layouts.shift
options[:text] = layouts.inject(render_to_string(options.merge({:layout=>inner_layout}))) do |output,layout|
render_to_string(options.merge({:text => output, :layout => layout}))
end
end
end
super
end
end
then, create your various layouts in the layouts folder, (for example 'admin.rhtml' and 'application.rhtml').
Now in your controllers add this just inside the class:
include NestedLayouts
And finally at the end of your actions do this:
def show
...
render :layout => ['admin','application']
end
the order of the layouts in the array is important. The admin layout will be rendered inside the application layout wherever the 'yeild' is.
this method can work really well depending on the design of the site and how the various elements are organized. for instance one of the included layouts could just contain a series of divs that contain the content that needs to be shown for a particular action, and the CSS on a higher layout could control where they are positioned.
There are few approaches to this problem.
You might want to use different layouts for each section.
You might want to use a partial included by all views in a given directory.
You might want to use content_for that is filled by either a view or a partial, and called in the global layout, if you have one.
Personally I believe that you should avoid more abstraction in this case.

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