Inserting variable into routes - map.resources :posts, :as => X - is this possible? - ruby-on-rails

Question

Ok, so I am working on a blog application of sorts. Thus far, it allows for a user to sign up for their own account, create posts, tags, comments, etc.
I have just implemented the ability to use www.myapp.com/brandon to set #user to find by username and therefore correctly display the users information at each url. So when you go to www.myapp.com/brandon you see all Brandon's posts, tags, and comments associated with those posts, etc. Works great.
I'm implementing this URL mapping through the routes.rb file by adding the following:
map.username_link '/:username', :controller => 'posts', :action => 'index'
And then just setting the #user variable in the PostController and corresponding views to find_by_username. Now the issue is this. Once at www.myapp.com/brandon when you click on a post title, it sends to myapp.com/posts/id without the username in the URL.
How do I tell rails to replace the /posts with /username.
Is it even possible to insert the user_username variable into this code?
map.resources :posts, :as => [what goes here]

Answer 1

You said there's going to be more than just posts on the page? comments and tags too? Sounds like we need some resource aggregation here...
Another concern: what if a user picks the name faq and you want domain.com/faq down the road? You can't possibly know all the URLs you will want in the future. Prefixing paths with /profiles is a great way to build a little "namespace" to prevent this from happening. So...
Why not a ProfilesController?
script/generate controller profiles index show
routes.rb
ActionController::Routing::Routes.draw do |map|
map.resources :profiles, :only => [:index, :show] do |profile|
profile.resources :posts, :only => [:index, :show]
profile.resources :comments, :only => [:index, :show]
profile.resources :tags, :only => [:index, :show]
end
# ...
end
This will give you the following routes
profiles GET /profiles(.:format) {:controller=>"profiles", :action=>"index"}
profile GET /profiles/:id(.:format) {:controller=>"profiles", :action=>"show"}
profile_posts GET /profiles/:profile_id/posts(.:format) {:controller=>"posts", :action=>"index"}
profile_post GET /profiles/:profile_id/posts/:id(.:format) {:controller=>"posts", :action=>"show"}
profile_comments GET /profiles/:profile_id/comments(.:format) {:controller=>"comments", :action=>"index"}
profile_comment GET /profiles/:profile_id/comments/:id(.:format) {:controller=>"comments", :action=>"show"}
profile_tags GET /profiles/:profile_id/tags(.:format) {:controller=>"tags", :action=>"index"}
profile_tag GET /profiles/:profile_id/tags/:id(.:format) {:controller=>"tags", :action=>"show"}
profiles_controller.rb
class ProfilesController < ApplicationController
# show all profiles; profile browser
# /profiles
def index
end
# show one profile
# /profiles/:id
def show
#user = User.find_by_username(params[:id])
end
end
posts_controller.rb (and others)
class PostsController < ApplicationController
before_filter :find_profile, :only => [:index, :show]
# list all posts for this profile
# /profiles/:profile_id/posts
def index
end
# show one post for this profile
# /profiles/:profile_id/posts/:id
def show
end
protected
def find_profile
#user = User.find_by_username(params[:profile_id])
end
end

Answer 2

You should be able to create the link using:
= link_to "User Posts", subdomain_link_url(#user.username, #post)
In your PostController, then, I would use a before_filter to lookup and set the #user variable:
class PostController < ApplicationController
before_filter :find_user
def other_method
# Some code here
end
protected
def find_user
#user = User.find_by_username(params[:username])
end
end

Answer 3

I don't know much about routes and stuff, so forgive me if this doesn't make sense, but doesn't it works for you?
map.resources :posts, :path_prefix => '/:username' do |post|
post.resources :comments
end
I can see here that this will generate the following
posts GET /:username/posts(.:format) {:controller=>"posts", :action=>"index"}
POST /:username/posts(.:format) {:controller=>"posts", :action=>"create"}
new_post GET /:username/posts/new(.:format) {:controller=>"posts", :action=>"new"}
edit_post GET /:username/posts/:id/edit(.:format) {:controller=>"posts", :action=>"edit"}
post GET /:username/posts/:id(.:format) {:controller=>"posts", :action=>"show"}
PUT /:username/posts/:id(.:format) {:controller=>"posts", :action=>"update"}
DELETE /:username/posts/:id(.:format) {:controller=>"posts", :action=>"destroy"}
post_comments GET /:username/posts/:post_id/comments(.:format) {:controller=>"comments", :action=>"index"}
POST /:username/posts/:post_id/comments(.:format) {:controller=>"comments", :action=>"create"}
new_post_comment GET /:username/posts/:post_id/comments/new(.:format) {:controller=>"comments", :action=>"new"}
edit_post_comment GET /:username/posts/:post_id/comments/:id/edit(.:format) {:controller=>"comments", :action=>"edit"}
post_comment GET /:username/posts/:post_id/comments/:id(.:format) {:controller=>"comments", :action=>"show"}
PUT /:username/posts/:post_id/comments/:id(.:format) {:controller=>"comments", :action=>"update"}
DELETE /:username/posts/:post_id/comments/:id(.:format) {:controller=>"comments", :action=>"destroy"}