Rails Advanced Sign Up Implementation How To? - ruby-on-rails

Question

I am a three week old Rails newbie and I have something that I want to implement but have no idea how to go about it. I'm making an app:
I want a user to enter some sign-up info on the new users view page, then, when they click submit, instead of the user being created and saved in the database right away, instead I want them to be taken to a second webpage where they will be asked for some final verification before they can create their account. Then when they click 'verify' and the verification passes, the account is finally created and saved to the database.
This is hard for me because I only know how to make basic forms, where you enter info, hit submit, and you have a new entry in the database. I don't know how to defer the "user creation" for another webpage, but a friend has mentioned something about http requests, but I still don't know anything. I'll post some of my code so far:
My users_controller new definition:
def new
#user = User.new
#user.websites.build
end
My users_controller create method:
def create
#user = User.new(params[:user])
if #user.save
sign_in #user
flash[:success] = "Welcome!"
redirect_to #user
else
render 'new'
end
end
My users/new.html.erb sign up form:
<% provide(:title, 'Sign up') %>
<h1>Sign up</h1>
<%= render 'shared/error_messages' %>
<%= form_for(#user) do |f| %>
<%= f.label :email %>
<%= f.text_field :email %><br/>
<%= f.label :password %>
<%= f.password_field :password %><br/>
<%= f.label :password_confirmation, 'Confirm Password' %>
<%= f.password_field :password_confirmation %><br/>
<%= f.fields_for :websites do |builder| %>
<%= builder.label :url, 'Website URL' %>
<%= builder.text_field :url %>
<% end %>
<%= f.submit "Sign up", :id => 'submit' %>
<% end %>
I've never asked a question that's just asking for advice like this before, so I'm hoping this is the right place to ask. Any and all help is appreciated.

Answer 1

I think you are trying to create a "multistep" form...
There is a very good railscast about it: http://railscasts.com/episodes/217-multistep-forms?view=asciicast
However, you might face some validation problems, as you need to validate each step individually. So, take a look also here: http://guides.rubyonrails.org/active_record_validations_callbacks.html#conditional-validation
I hope it helps...

Answer 2

You'd better use Devise for user management.
https://github.com/plataformatec/devise
Here's a railscast tutorial.
railscasts.com/episodes/209-introducing-devise

Answer 3

If you're doing multistep, you can always pass information from one page to another. You can store it in a session array, repost it to the other page, or even make a cookie.
Remember to also do every step of this under https, because account creation requires sensitive info.
If Rails is your first I would actually recommend something lower level like PHP so you can understand how everything works before you start doing stuff with a high level framework like rails. MVC is usually not the best first step in web development, even though it is powerful and easier than doing everything from scratch.