I have a welcome wizzard that builds a user profile when first login.Problem is it is quite messy implemented but I have tried to refactor it several times and rewrite it but cannot comeup with something better then below.
In ideal world it would be all inside welcome_controller.rb but this have caused much headache so Now i rewrote the update method for profile_controller instead.
Any thoughts on how to improve this make it more dry and clean? Would love to recieve some good input on this and thoughts perhaps to move all update stuff to welcome controller instead?
WelcomeController:
class WelcomeController < ApplicationController
before_filter :authenticate_user!
before_filter :load_step
layout "welcome"
def sub_layout
"center"
end
def edit
# form updates post to edit since
# profile is non existant yet
params[:step] = "photos" unless params[:step]
@photos = Photo.where(:attachable_id => current_user.id)
@profile = Profile.where(:user_id => current_user.id).first
@photo = Photo.new
if ["photos", "basics", "details", "test"].member?(params[:step])
# force rendering the correct step
case current_user.profile.step
when 1
render :template => "/profiles/edit/edit_photos", :layout => "welcome"
when 2
render :template => "/profiles/edit/edit_basics", :layout => "welcome"
when 3
render :template => "/profiles/edit/edit_details", :layout => "welcome"
when 4
render :template => "/profiles/edit/edit_test", :layout => "welcome"
end
else
render :action => "/profiles/edit/edit_photos"
end
end
def load_step
redirect_to root_path if current_user.profile.complete
case current_user.profile.step
when 1
redirect_to "/welcome" unless params[:controller] == "welcome"
when 2
redirect_to "/welcome/basics" unless params[:controller] == "welcome" && params[:action] == "edit" && params[:step] == "basics"
when 3
redirect_to "/welcome/details" unless params[:controller] == "welcome" && params[:action] == "edit" && params[:step] == "details"
when 4
redirect_to "/welcome/test" unless params[:controller] == "welcome" && params[:action] == "edit" && params[:step] == "test"
end
end
end
ProfileController:
class ProfileController < ApplicationController
...
def update
@profile = Profile.find(params[:id])
@tags = Session.tag_counts_on(:tags)
@profile.form = params[:form]
@match = Match.where(:user_id => current_user.id).first
authorize! :update, @profile
respond_to do |format|
if @profile.update_attributes(params[:profile])
if current_user.profile.complete
format.html { redirect_to "/profiles/#{ current_user.username }/edit/#{ @profile.form }", notice: t('notice.saved') }
else
case current_user.profile.step
when 1
current_user.profile.update_attributes(:step => 2)
format.html { redirect_to "/welcome/basics", notice: t('notice.saved') }
when 2
current_user.profile.update_attributes(:step => 3)
format.html { redirect_to "/welcome/details", notice: t('notice.saved') }
when 3
current_user.profile.update_attributes(:step => 4)
format.html { redirect_to "/welcome/test", notice: t('notice.saved') }
end
end
else
if current_user.profile.complete
format.html { render action: "/edit/edit_" + params[:profile][:form], :what => @profile.form }
else
case current_user.profile.step
when 1
current_user.profile.update_attributes(:step => 2)
format.html { redirect_to "/welcome/basics", notice: t('notice.saved') }
when 2
current_user.profile.update_attributes(:step => 3)
format.html { redirect_to "/welcome/details", notice: t('notice.saved') }
when 3
current_user.profile.update_attributes(:complete => 1)
format.html { redirect_to root_path }
end
end
end
end
end
...
end
Views are in /profiles/edit/*
Wizards are notoriously difficult to get right and I've never seen an implementation that fully satisfied me. I usually go with so called "form objects" and create a restful controller for each step.
There is an excellent (but paid) Railscast on the subject.
The gist is this: You make an object that quacks just like a regular ActiveRecord model, by using ActiveModel.
For instance:
class Welcome::BasicInformation
include ActiveModel::Validations
include ActiveModel::Conversion
extend ActiveModel::Naming
def persisted?
false
end
def initialize(user)
@user = user
end
attr_reader :user
delegate :some_field, :some_other_field, to: :user
validates_presence_of :some_field
def save(params)
user.some_field = params[:some_field]
user.some_other_field = params[:some_other_field]
if valid?
user.step = 2
user.save
end
end
def photo
@photo ||= Photo.new
end
def profile
@profile ||= user.profiles.first
end
end
You'd basically create a model like this for every step.
Then you can create controllers for each step, with a specialized ApplicationController for all the steps:
class Welcome::ApplicationController < ::ApplicationController
layout "welcome"
before_filter :authentice_user!
end
And for each step:
class Welcome::BasicInformationsControlller < Welcome::ApplicationController
def new
@step = Welcome::BasicInformation.new(current_user)
end
def create
@step = Welcome::BasicInformation.new(current_user)
if @step.save(params[:welcome_basic_information])
redirect_to welcome_some_other_step_path, notice: "Yay"
else
render :new
end
end
end
And create a route for each step:
namespace :welcome do
resource :basic_information, only: [:new, :create]
resource :some_other_step, only: [:new, :create]
end
This only leaves some automatic redirects to do, like prohibiting users from going to steps that they're not yet allowed to visit. This might not be as important now that you're using separate URLs for each step.
You can store information about which step to visit in the form objects:
class Welcome::BasicInformation
# ...
def allowed?
user.profile.step == 1
end
end
And then refactor the controllers a bit:
class Welcome::BasicInformationsController < Welcome::ApplicationController
before_filter :allowed?
def new
end
def create
if step.save(params[:welcome_basic_information])
redirect_to welcome_some_other_step_path, notice: "Yay"
else
render :new
end
end
private
def step
@step ||= Welcome::BasicInformation.new(current_user)
end
helper_method :step
def allowed?
redirect_to previous_step_path unless step.allowed?
end
end
This might not be shorter, but I do like how flexible it is, how focussed each step is, how you can do different validations on each step and so on. Each controller/model combination is very easy to follow and will be understandable for others.