Rails redirections with new users and logins

Question

So I'm trying to get the user to return to the page they were looking at before they click "log in"

This is what I got in my user application controller:

def redirect_back_or_default(default)
  redirect_to(session[:return_to] || default)
  session[:return_to] = nil
end

And this is what I have in my sessions controller:

  def new
    @user_session = UserSession.new
    session[:return_to] = request.referer
    end
  end

    def create
    @user_session = UserSession.new(params[:user_session])
    if @user_session.save
        flash[:notice] = "Login successful!"
        redirect_back_or_default(home_path)
    else
        render :action => :new
    end
  end

This works fine most of the time but if a user logs in right after they register to the site, they will get redirected to a blank page. I imagine this is the "create" action because it was the last action before going to user sessions new.

So I tried this:

  def new
    @user_session = UserSession.new
    unless request.referer == join_path
    session[:return_to] = request.referer
    end
  end

And this tries to take me back to the login page after I log in.

What I'd really like to do is have the user see their profile when they log in for the very first time.

This wouldn't give me a user id and raised a routing error

  def create
    @user_session = UserSession.new(params[:user_session])
    if @user_session.save
        flash[:notice] = "Login successful!"
        redirect_back_or_default(user_path(current_user))
    else
        render :action => :new
    end
  end

Anybody gone through these redirecting acrobatics before? I can't seem to get it to work. I'm using authlogic if that helps.

Answer 1

Found a great solution at: http://ethilien.net/archives/better-redirects-in-rails/