This gem looks at the current routes.rb, authorization ability.rb, current_user and controller context to metaprogram an effective CRUD website.

It automates linking to resource edit, show, delete pages, as well as member and collection actions.

It totally replaces your controller, and instead provides a simple DSL to route actions based on your form params[:commit].

The goal of this gem is to reduce the amount of code that needs to be written when developing a ruby on rails website.

It's ruby on rails, on effective rails.

gem 'effective_resources'

Run the bundle command to install it:

bundle install

Install the configuration file:

rails generate effective_resources:install

The generator will install an initializer which describes all configuration options.

Check the config/initializer/effective_resources.rb and make sure it's calling your authentication library correctly.

config.authorization_method = Proc.new { |controller, action, resource| authorize!(action, resource) } # CanCanCan

A rails developer will always need to maintain and write:

• The routes.rb as it's the single most important file in an entire app.
• The ability.rb or other authorization.
• A normal ApplicationRecord model file for each model, /app/models/post.rb.
• Its corresponding form, /app/views/posts/_form.html.haml and _post.html.haml
• Any javascript and css

However, all other areas of code should be automated.

This gem replaces the following work a rails developer would normally do:

• Controllers.
• Any file named index/edit/show/new.html. We use rails application templates and powerful defaults views so these files need never be written.
• Writing permitted params. This gem implements a model dsl to define and blacklist params.
• Manually checking which actions are available to the current_user on each resource all the time.
• Writing submit buttons

This gem was built to quickly build CRUD interfaces. Automate all the actions, and submit buttons.

It uses the params[:commit] message to call the appropriate action, or save on the given resource.

It reads the routes.rb to serve collection and member actions, and considers current_user and ability.rb

Tries to do the right thing in all situations.

Add to your app/models/post.rb:

class Post < ApplicationRecord
  belongs_to :author, class_name: 'User'

  # The only thing this block is used for - right now - is permitted_params
  effective_resource do
    category      :string
    title         :string
    body          :text

    approved      :boolean, permitted: false   # You could write permitted: [:admin] to only permit this in the admin namespace

    timestamps
  end

  # The approve! action will be called by Effective::CrudController when submitted on a create/update or member action
  def approve!
    raise 'already approved' if approved?s
    update!(approved: true)
  end
end

Add to your routes.rb:

resources :posts

Add to your contoller:

class PostsController < ApplicationController
  include Effective::CrudController

  submit :approve, 'Approve'
end

and in your view:

  = form_with(model: post) do
    = f.input :text
    = effective_submit(f)  # Will make a Save and an Approve. Rails 5 forms.
    = simple_form_submit(f) # Ditto.

and in your authorization:

  can :approve, Post
  # can(:approve, Post) { |post| !post.approved? }

Implements the 7 RESTful actions: index, new, create, show, edit, update, destroy.

• Loads an appropriate @posts or @post type instance variable.
• Sets a @page_title (effective_pages).
• Calls authorize as per the configured EffectiveResources.authorization_method (flow through to CanCan or Pundit)
• Does the create/update save
• Sets a flash[:success] and redirects on success, or sets a flash.now[:danger] and renders on error.
• Does the right thing with member and collection actions
• Intelligently redirects based on commit message

You can override individual methods on the CrudController.

Here is a more advanced example:

class PostsController < ApplicationController
  include Effective::CrudController
  # Sets the @page_title in a before_filter
  page_title 'My Posts', only: [:index]

  # Callbacks: before_render, before_save, after_save, after_error, after_commit
  before_render(only: :new) do
    resource.client = current_user.clients.first
  end

  submit :accept, 'Accept',
    if: -> { !resource.approved? }, # Imho this check should be kept in ability.rb, but you could do it here.
    redirect: -> { accepted_posts_path },
    success: 'The @resource has been approved' # Any @resource will be replaced with @resource.to_s

  # All queries and objects will be built with this scope
  resource_scope -> { current_user.posts }

  # Similar to above, with block syntax
  resource_scope do
    Post.active.where(user: current_user)
  end

  protected

  # The post_params are discovered from the model effective_resource do ... end block.
  # But you could also define them like this if you wanted.
  # Other recognized method names are posts_params and permitted_params
  def post_params
    params.require(:post).permit(:id, :author_id, :category, :title, :body)
  end

  # Pass /things/new?duplicate_id=3
  def duplicate_resource(resource)
    resource_klass.new(resource.attributes.slice('job_site', 'address'))
  end
end

= form_with(model: post) do |f|
  = effective_submit(f)
  = simple_form_submit(f)

These helpers output the = f.submit 'Save' based on the controllers submits, the current_user and ability.rb.

They try to add good data-confirm options for delete buttons and sort by btn-primary, btn-secondary and btn-danger.

When you installed the gem, it should make some views/application/index.html.haml, new.html.haml, etc.

If you're not using haml, you should be, go install haml. Or convert to slim, you sly devils.

These files, possibly customized to your app, should replace almost all resource specific views.

Just create a _form.html.haml and _post.html.haml for each resource.

Just put another app/views/posts/index.html.haml in the posts directory to override the default template.

Sure why not. These don't really fit into my code base anywhere else.

Quickly adds a paginate scope to your model that can then be used in your views and also integrates well with effective_bootstrap. The pagination method is Limit and Offset.

# Given any model you just need to call it like
class Thing < ApplicationRecord
  acts_as_paginable
end

# Now you can use it like:
Thing.all.paginate(page: 1, per_page: 5)

Quickly adds rails 5 has_secure_token to your model, along with some Post.find() enhancements to work with tokens instead of IDs.

This prevents enumeration of this resource.

Make sure to create a string token field on your model, then just declare acts_as_tokened. There are no options.

Create an 'archived' boolean filed in your model, then declare acts_as_archived.

Implements the dumb archived pattern.

An archived object should not be displayed on index screens, or any related resource's #new pages

effective_select (from the effective_bootstrap gem) is aware of this concern, and calls .unarchived and .archived appropriately when passed an ActiveRecord relation.

Use the cascade argument to cascade archived changes to any has_manys

class Thing < ApplicationRecord
  has_many :comments
  acts_as_archivable cascade: :comments
end

Each controller needs its own archive and unarchive action. To simplify this, use the following route concern.

In your routes.rb:

Rails.application.routes.draw do
  acts_as_archived

  resource :things, concern: :acts_as_archived
  resource :comments, concern: :acts_as_archived
end

and include Effective::CrudController in your resource controller.

Build up an object through a wizard.

Works with the wicked gem to create wizard quickly.

Create a model and define acts_as_wizard:

class Thing < ApplicationRecord
  acts_as_wizard(
    start: 'Start',
    select: 'Select',
    finish: 'Finish'
  )

  effective_resource do
    title       :string
    wizard_steps  :text, permitted: false
  end

  validates :title, presence: true

  def to_s
    title.presence || 'New Thing'
  end

  # If you define a bang method matching the name of a step
  # it will be called when that step is submitted.
  # Otherwise save! is called.
  def select!
    ApplicationMailer.selected(self).deliver_later
    save!
  end

  # An array of steps that the controller will use
  # Default value is just all of them. But you can customize here
  # def required_steps
  #   steps = WIZARD_STEPS.keys
  #   selectable? ? steps : steps - [:select]
  # end

  # Control whether the user has permission to visit this step
  #
  # This is the default, can go forward or back:
  #
  # def can_visit_step?(step)
  #   can_revisit_completed_steps(step)
  # end
  #
  # Easy change if you only want to go forward:
  #
  # def can_visit_step?(step)
  #   cannot_revisit_completed_steps(step)
  # end
  #
  # or custom algorithm:
  #
  # def can_visit_step?(step)
  #   return false unless has_completed_previous_step?(step)
  #   return false if has_completed_step?(:finish) && step != :finish
  # end
end

In your routes:

resources :things, only: [:index, :show, :new, :destroy] do
  resources :build, controller: :things, only: [:show, :update]
end

Make a controller:

class ThingsController < ApplicationController
  include Effective::WizardController
end

And then create one view per step.

Here's views/things/start.html.haml:

= render_wizard_sidebar(resource) do
  %h1= @page_title

  = effective_form_with(model: resource, url: wizard_path(step), method: :put) do |f|
    = f.text_field :title
    = f.submit 'Save and Continue'

You can also call render_wizard_sidebar(resource) without the block syntax.

If you add f.hidden_field(:skip_to_step, value: 'stepc') you can control the next step.

This gem provides an admin endpoint for select2 AJAX to fetch users.

To use this endpoint please add

can :admin, :effective_resources

And then create a select field like this:

  = f.select :user_id, current_user.class.all,
    ajax_url: effective_resources.users_admin_select2_ajax_index_path

To format the results, add a method to your User class. It can return html.

def to_select2
  "<span>#{user.first_name} #{user.last_name}</span> <small>#{user.email}</small>"
end

Effective Resources is designed to work with Devise. It also adds support for an alternate email for authentication. You just need to add an alternate_email column to your User model table.

After that column is added, any user would be able to log in with either their email or their alternate_email.

You can also create another mailer for devise in order to send password reset emails to the both the primary email and also the alternate_email, like this:

class DeviseMailer < Devise::Mailer
  # Overriding Devise's #headers_for to support alternate_email when present
  def headers_for(action, opts)
    headers = super(action, opts)

    if [:reset_password_instructions].include?(action)
      headers.merge!(
        to: [resource.email, resource.try(:alternate_email)].compact.uniq
      )
    end

    headers
  end
end

and set this new mailer to be used by devise in config/initializers/devise.rb:

Devise.setup do |config|
  # ...
  config.mailer = 'DeviseMailer'
  # ...
end

Run tests by:

rails test

MIT License. Copyright Code and Effect Inc.

1. Fork it
2. Create your feature branch (git checkout -b my-new-feature)
3. Commit your changes (git commit -am 'Add some feature')
4. Push to the branch (git push origin my-new-feature)
5. Bonus points for test coverage
6. Create new Pull Request