Rails Beginner - which controller to put functions in? - ruby-on-rails

New to rails and I have what I think is a basic question.
In an admin view, there will be varying operations done on different data models. I have a layout "admin" which has various tabs the user clicks to load forms to edit various sets of data.
Should the controller for everything that can be edited in this view be in admin_controller (ie, have an edit_product, edit_user...), or is it better to leave the functions in the controller for each model (say users_controller, products_controller, orders_controller) and specify in the controllers to use the admin layout?
I'm working through my first rails project, and it seems either way works, but obviously I want to follow the right convention going forward so any hint, or a link to an article about this topic would be appreciated.
Thanks,

The proper Rails way to do this would be to use Namespaces. I'll give an example below:
Inside your controllers folder, you add a new folder called admin, and for each model you want to edit as an admin, add a controller. Here is a basic blog application:
app/
models/
views/
controllers/
users_controller.rb
posts_controller.rb
comments_controller.rb
admin/
users_controller.rb
posts_controller.rb
comments_controller.rb
Notice the new folder layer within our controller folder. Inside each of these files, you'll change the definition of the class, from:
class UsersController < ApplicationController
to:
class Admin::UsersController < ApplicationController
Now, within your congif/routes.rb file, you can namespace your routes to the admin namespace, like so:
map.namespace :admin do |admin|
admin.resources :users
admin.resources :posts
admin.resources :comments
end
Now, you can go to a URL such as: http://localhost:3000/admin/users/1 and you'll have access to whatever you specified in the admin version of your users controller.
You can read more in this StackOverflow question, and read up on the Routes here.

Good answer from Mike. I would add that you can see the "standard" rails code for this by using a generator:
# in rails 2.3
$ script/generate controller admin/users
# in rails 3.0
$ rails generate controller admin/users
The slash in the controller name defines a namespace. Also see rake routes for the named paths that it creates, e.g. admin_users_path etc.

Related

rails_admin using separate login pages for admin and user

I'm using rails_admin and devise gem for my rails 5 project. I used CanCanCan for authorization. My problem is i must use separate login pages, one for normal user and one for admin user (now it uses same login page for both).
Does anyone has solution for my problem?
Many thanks!
You find more info in the below link for multiple devise user model:
https://github.com/plataformatec/devise/wiki/How-to-Setup-Multiple-Devise-User-Models
if you want to use two different paths use namespace in your routes.rb
Example:
Rails.application.routes.draw do
root to: 'user#index'
.
.
.
namespace :admin do
root to: 'dashboard#index'
.
.
.
end
end
Don't forget that you will have to namespace all the controllers that you plan to include in the admin section, as well as remember to have those files on the proper folder.
For the above example you should have the admin controller inside the path app/controllers/admin/dashboard_controller.rb and the content of the controller should be similar to the below code
class Admin::DashboardController < ActionController::Base
def index
end
end
if you want to use one single login page for both admins and users, then you'll have to use a common controller to handle both

How to integrate frontend and admin theme together in ruby on rails

I have an application with admin in ruby on rails. Now I need to add front-end in that application. But I don't know how ingrate with both in a single application.
You can create an "admin" area pretty simply once you know how. It all comes down to namespaces, specifically:
#config/routes.rb
namespace :admin do
# Sets up "/admin"
root "application#index"
end
Namespaces are essentially "folders", which also influence the names of your Rails classes (for example, your controller class names).
This means you'll be able to use the following:
#app/controllers/admin/application_controller.rb
class Admin::ApplicationController < ActionController::Base
layout :admin
def index
#do stuff here
end
end
Your models will remain as they are now (no need to make them admin namespaced).
--
The above code should give you the ability to access yoururl.com/admin and have a controller/action to work with. Of course, this negates the fact you're going to have to populate this area with data & controller actions; it all works much similarly to a "standard" rails app once you get it working.
You'll want to check out these helpful resources:
ActiveAdmin gem
RailsAdmin gem
RubyToolbox Admin gems
Railscasts Admin tutorial:

proper way to define resources for singular name controller and model in rails?

if I have articles controller and article model I would create resources: articles in config/routes.rb
but let's say I have a singular controller that I want to use for control panel such as control_panel_controller.rb (not control_panels_controller.rb) and a model that matches that controller control_panel.rb Would I just use resources: control_panel as proper ruby convention or I would have to do it some other way?
You can specify singular routes and override the default controller name that is expected.
Here is how I set up my home page:
resource :home, only: [:show], controller: 'home'
class HomeController < ApplicationController
...
end
This gives a helper called 'home_path' that generates the '/home' URL.
Take a look at the Rails routing guide; it does cover these options they're just not super obvious.
Edit: btw, your model names are totally independent of the controllers/routes. Of course it's good convention to make them match where possible, but often times as your app grows there will be many models or service objects that don't directly correspond to a controller with CRUD actions for it.

Alias route's name

I need to have one path accessible through multiple names. In my routes.rb I did
get '/route' => 'controller#edit', :as => 'name_a'
get '/route' => 'controller#edit', :as => 'name_b'
This works nicely but loads the routes table for nothing. From my understanding of the documentation, :as defines a helper method when called.
So I went to my ApplicationController and added
alias_method :name_b, :name_a
and I removed the second line from routes.rb
but that fails with Uncaught exception: undefined method name_a for class ApplicationController
is there any proper way of having two names for a single path?
=================EDIT====================
Elaboration:
I use Devise gem to manage session, registration, locking, etc. of 2 kinds of users, let's call them Admin and Guest. The gem is very well put but it asks for definitive route names to behave properly.
In my case, as far as devise is concerned, only the registration process is different so I'm trying to build a structure which looks as follow:
app
controllers
users
admin
registration_controller.rb
guest
registration_controller.rb
session_controller.rb
password_controller.rb
registration_controller.rb
the Admin and Guest controllers inherit from the above registration_controller which inherit's from Devise.
Now, to work properly, Devise needs for instance the names guest_user_password and admin_user_password to create or delete password retrievals. In my case, both are under the same path so I want both names to redirect to the same 'users/password' controller.
More important, and that's why I really wanted the alaising. Is that my views should not care whether it is dealing with Admin and Guest routes when redirecting to password retrieval controller. Both are users so I want to use user_password for both.
Hence my question. :)
Also note that as I wrote it, things works. I'm just trying to get the 'most elegant way' of writing it.
How about putting the alias in your ApplicationController?
class ApplicationController < ActionController::Base
alias_method :route_new, :route_old
helper_method :route_new
Remember that it's new name first, then old name.
The helper_method call is in order to use these in your views and not just controllers.
If you like, you can then place this in an included module called something like RouteAliases
You can add something like this to your routes.rb:
Rails.application.routes.draw do
...
Rails.application.routes.named_routes.tap do |named_routes|
named_routes['new_name'] = named_routes['real_name']
end
end
This will create new_name_path and new_name_url helpers. I have tested this with Rails 5.0.6.

Backend administration in Ruby on Rails

I'd like to build a real quick and dirty administrative backend for a Ruby on Rails application I have been attached to at the last minute. I've looked at activescaffold and streamlined and think they are both very attractive and they should be simple to get running, but I don't quite understand how to set up either one as a backend administration page. They seem designed to work like standard Ruby on Rails generators/scaffolds for creating visible front ends with model-view-controller-table name correspondence.
How do you create a admin_players interface when players is already in use and you want to avoid, as much as possible, affecting any of its related files?
The show, edit and index of the original resource are not usuable for the administrator.
I think namespaces is the solution to the problem you have here:
map.namespace :admin do |admin|
admin.resources :customers
end
Which will create routes admin_customers, new_admin_customers, etc.
Then inside the app/controller directory you can have an admin directory. Inside your admin directory, create an admin controller:
./script/generate rspec_controller admin/admin
class Admin::AdminController < ApplicationController
layout "admin"
before_filter :login_required
end
Then create an admin customers controller:
./script/generate rspec_controller admin/customers
And make this inhert from your ApplicationController:
class Admin::CustomersController < Admin::AdminController
This will look for views in app/views/admin/customers
and will expect a layout in app/views/layouts/admin.html.erb.
You can then use whichever plugin or code you like to actually do your administration, streamline, ActiveScaffold, whatever personally I like to use resourcecs_controller, as it saves you a lot of time if you use a REST style architecture, and forcing yourself down that route can save a lot of time elsewhere. Though if you inherited the application that's a moot point by now.
Do check out active_admin at https://github.com/gregbell/active_admin.
I have used Streamlined pretty extensively.
To get Streamline working you create your own controllers - so you can actually run it completely apart from the rest of your application, and you can even run it in a separate 'admin' folder and namespace that can be secured with .
Here is the Customers controller from a recent app:
class CustomersController < ApplicationController
layout 'streamlined'
acts_as_streamlined
Streamlined.ui_for(Customer) do
exporters :csv
new_submit_button :ajax => false
default_order_options :order => "created_at desc"
list_columns :name, :email, :mobile, :comments, :action_required_yes_no
end
end
Use https://github.com/sferik/rails_admin.

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