RailsAdminSettingsUi

A user-friendly interface for managing application settings in Rails Admin, designed to work seamlessly with the rails-settings-cached gem.

• User-friendly interface: Replace the confusing default Rails Admin table view with an intuitive settings form
• Automatic field type detection: Smart field rendering based on your setting values (boolean, integer, email, URL, JSON, etc.)
• Categorized settings: Automatically groups settings by prefix for better organization
• Default value management: Shows default values and allows easy reset to defaults
• Tab-based interface: Clean, organized display with categories in separate tabs
• Real-time validation: Immediate feedback for invalid JSON and other field types

Add this line to your application's Gemfile:

gem 'rails-settings-cached-rails-admin'

And then execute:

$ bundle install

This gem requires:

• rails_admin gem
• rails-settings-cached gem
• A Setting model that inherits from RailsSettings::Base

Make sure you have a Setting model with default values:

class Setting < RailsSettings::Base
  cache_prefix { "v1" }

  # General settings
  field :app_name, default: "My Application"
  field :maintenance_mode, default: false
  field :max_users, default: 1000

  # Email settings  
  field :mail_from, default: "noreply@example.com"
  field :mail_host, default: "smtp.example.com"
  field :mail_port, default: 587

  # API settings
  field :api_key, default: ""
  field :api_timeout, default: 30.0
  field :api_endpoints, default: ["https://api.example.com"]

  # Advanced settings
  field :feature_flags, default: { "new_ui" => false, "beta_features" => false }
end

In your Rails Admin configuration, enable the settings action:

# config/initializers/rails_admin.rb
RailsAdmin.config do |config|
  # ... your existing configuration

  # Enable the settings UI action
  config.actions do
    dashboard
    index
    show
    new
    edit
    delete
    settings_ui  # Add this line
  end

  # Optional: Hide the default Setting model from the navigation
  config.model 'Setting' do
    visible false
  end
end

Once configured, you'll see a "Settings" tab in your Rails Admin dashboard. Click it to access the user-friendly settings interface.

Settings are automatically grouped into categories based on their key prefixes:

• mail_* settings → "Mail" category
• api_* settings → "API" category
• Other settings → "General" category

The gem automatically detects appropriate field types:

• Boolean values → Checkbox
• Integer values → Number field
• Float values → Number field with decimals
• Array values → Comma-separated text field
• Hash values → JSON text area
• Email-like strings → Email field
• URL-like strings → URL field
• Long text → Text area
• Everything else → Text field

• Shows current vs. default values
• Provides "Reset to Default" buttons for modified settings
• Displays default values as help text

Override the extract_category method for custom grouping logic:

RailsAdminSettingsUi::SettingsAction.class_eval do
  private

  def extract_category(key)
    case key.to_s
    when /notification|email|mail/
      'Notifications'
    when /payment|billing|stripe/
      'Payments' 
    when /social|oauth|auth/
      'Authentication'
    else
      super
    end
  end
end

After checking out the repo, run:

bundle install

To test the gem locally before publishing:

1. Build the gem:

gem build rails_admin_settings_ui.gemspec

2. Install locally:

gem install rails_admin_settings_ui-0.1.0.gem

3. Or use it directly from your Gemfile:

gem 'rails_admin_settings_ui', path: '/path/to/rails_admin_settings_ui'

Bug reports and pull requests are welcome on GitHub at https://github.com/yourusername/rails_admin_settings_ui.

The gem is available as open source under the terms of the MIT License.