ActiveAction
An elegant DSL to define batch actions in your Rails controllers and display them in your views.
Idea
The idea of ActiveAction is to use a form object to submit the form, but changing the action you submit to — as chosen by the user in your batch actions selection.
Installation
Add this line to your application's Gemfile:
gem 'active_action'And then execute:
$ bundle
And restart your Rails server.
Usage
Use the active_action :route, options = {} DSL to define a batch action.
Then build your batch action dropdown with active_actions.each { ... } in your view.
Step-by-step
Controller
Define your actions.
class NotificationsController < ApplicationController
active_action :mark_as_read, label: "Mark selected as read"
def mark_as_read
notifications = Notification.find(params[:collection_ids])
notifications.update_all(read: true)
redirect_to notifications_path, notice: "Marked as read"
end
end
View
Wrap your ActiveRecord collection (or whatever collection) into a form object. Then, drop in a button to handle the batch actions you defined in your controller.
<%= simple_form_for :notifications do |f| %>
<div class="dropdown">
<a class="btn btn-secondary dropdown-toggle active_actions_button" disabled="disabled" href="#" id="activeActionsButton" data-toggle="dropdown" aria-haspopup="true" aria-expanded="false">Actions</a>
<div class="dropdown-menu" aria-labelled-by="activeActionsButton">
<% active_actions_for(:all).each do |action| %>
<a class="dropdown-item active_action" href="javascript:;" data-action="<%= action.path %>"><%= action.label %></a>
<% end %>
</div>
</div>
<table>
<thead>
<tr>
<td></td>
<td>Content</td>
</tr>
</thead>
<tbody>
<% @notifications.each do |notification| %>
<tr>
<td><input type="checkbox" name="collection_ids[]" value=<%= notification.id %>" /></td>
<td><%= notification.content %></td>
</tr>
<% end %>
</tbody>
</table>
<% end %>
And some Javascript
Lastly, drop in some Javascript to handle changing the form action.
$('.active_action').on('click', function() {
var form = $(this).closest('form');
form.attr('action', form.attr('action') + "/" + $(this).attr('data-action'));
form.submit();
});Frequently asked questions
I want to submit to a member route. What does my view look like?
Just change what the form submits to. More info with examples here.
<%= simple_form_for @restaurant do |f| %>
<%= active_actions_button_for(:beers) %>
<table>
<thead>
<tr>
<td></td>
<td>Beer name</td>
</tr>
</thead>
<tbody>
<% @resetaurant.beers.each do |beer| %>
<tr>
<td><input type="checkbox" name="collection_ids[]" value=<%= beer.id %>" /></td>
<td><%= beer.name %></td>
</tr>
<% end %>
</tbody>
</table>
<% end %>
Frequently asked questions
Does this come with javascript to handle select-all-ish functionality?
Nope. But you can use what I've been using for my projects.
What's a scope?
A scope merely defines what context a active action is relevant to inside its controller. Say you had RestaurantsController and you wanted to "Mark as visited" (for :restaurants), or for their beers selection (presumably on your restaurants#show view), "Mark [beer] as consumed" for :beers. You could define these as separate scopes for your active actions array.
Defaults to :all.
Why don't you just d—
Because I loathe javascript.