This is a gem version of github.com/avdgaag/acts_as_publishable ( a Rails plugin) Thanks to Arjan van der Gaag for his original work in that plugin, which this gem is heavily based off.

His plugin is Copyright © 2007 Arjan van der Gaag, released under the MIT license

github.com/ismasan/ar_publish_control

Add start/end publishing dates to your ActiveRecord models.

Adds published, unpublished and published_only(boolean) named_scopes to your models.

class Post < ActiveRecord::Base
  publish_control
end

# creating
@post = Post.create(params[:post])

@post.publish!

# With start and end dates
@post.update_attributes :publish_at => Time.now, :unpublish_at => 2.weeks.from_now

# Or, in your views...
<% form_for @post do |f| %>
  ...
  <p>
    <%= f.label :is_published, "Publish" %>
    <%= f.check_box :is_published %>
  </p>
  <p>
    <%= f.label :publish_at, "From" %>
    <%= f.date_select :publish_at %>
  </p>
  <p>
    <%= f.label :unpublish_at, "To" %>
    <%= f.date_select :unpublish_at %>
  </p>
  ...
<% end %>

# in your controllers
def index
  @posts = Post.published
end

def show
  @post = Post.published.find(params[:id])
  @post.published? # => true
end

# You can nest scopes:
@post = current_user.posts.published(params[:id])

@posts = current_user.posts.published.paginate(:page => params[:page])

# unpublished ones
@posts = Post.unpublished

# All posts if logged_in?, only published otherwise
@posts = Post.published_only?( !logged_in? ).paginate(:page => params[:page])

# Unpublish
@post.unpublish!
@post.unpublished? # => true

# You can access the ones marked as "published" but with a publish date in the future
@upcoming_post = Post.upcoming
@upcoming_post.first.upcoming? # => true

# You can fetch objects that have expired (ie. they have an unpublish_at date set in the past)
@expired_posts = Post.expired
@expired_posts.first.expired? # => true

# Finally, if you want those objects where is_published == false, regardless of dates
@drafts = Post.draft

All of these named_scopes can be chained with other finder conditions and paginated with will_paginate

ActiveRecord

If you haven’t yet, add github.com to your gem sources (you only need to do that once):

gem sources -a http://gems.github.com

Now you can install the normal way:

sudo gem install ismasan-ar_publish_control

Add the necessary fields to you schema, in a migration:

class AddPublishableToPosts < ActiveRecord::Migration
  def self.up
    add_column :posts, :is_published, :boolean, :default => true
    add_column :posts, :publish_at, :datetime
    add_column :posts, :unpublish_at, :datetime
    # update existing records if you have them
    Post.update_all "publish_at = created_at"
  end
  def self.down
    remove_column :posts, :is_published
    remove_column :posts, :publish_at
    remove_column :posts, :unpublish_at
  end
end

rake db:migrate

Then, in your Rails app’s environment:

config.gem 'ismasan-ar_publish_control',:lib => 'ar_publish_control',:source => "http://gems.github.com"

…Or in Merb or elsewhere

require "ar_publish_control"

If you wan to unpack the gem to you app’s “vendor” directory:

rake gems:unpack

Test are in the spec directory (rspec). To run them, first initialize the test sqlite database

rake db:create

Now you can run the specs

rake spec

(The MIT License)

Copyright © 2008 Ismael Celis

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the ‘Software’), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED ‘AS IS’, WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.