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kt-DelayedPaperclip lets you process your Paperclip attachments in a background task with ActiveJob

The most common use case for Paperclip is to easily attach image files to ActiveRecord models. Most of the time these image files will have multiple styles and will need to be resized when they are created. This is usually a pretty slow operation and should be handled in a background task.

I’m sure that everyone knows this, this gem just makes it easy to do.

Install the gem:

gem install kt-delayed_paperclip

Or even better, add it to your Gemfile.

source "https://rubygems.org"
gem "kt-delayed_paperclip"

In your model:

class User < ActiveRecord::Base
  has_attached_file :avatar, styles: {
                                       medium: "300x300>",
                                       thumb: "100x100>"
                                     }

  process_in_background :avatar
end

Use your Paperclip attachment just like always in controllers and views.

In the default setup, when you upload an image for the first time and try to display it before the job has been completed, Paperclip will be none the wiser and output the url of the image which is yet to be processed, which will result in a broken image link being displayed on the page.

To have the missing image url be outputted by paperclip while the image is being processed, all you need to do is add a #{attachment_name}_processing column to the specific model you want to enable this feature for. This feature gracefully degrades and will not affect models which do not have the column added to them.

class AddAvatarProcessingToUser < ActiveRecord::Migration
  def self.up
    add_column :users, :avatar_processing, :boolean
  end

  def self.down
    remove_column :users, :avatar_processing
  end
end

@user = User.new(avatar: File.new(...))
@user.save
@user.avatar.url #=> "/images/original/missing.png"

# Process job

@user.reload
@user.avatar.url #=> "/system/images/3/original/IMG_2772.JPG?1267562148"

This is useful if you have a difference between missing images and images currently being processed.

class User < ActiveRecord::Base
  has_attached_file :avatar

  process_in_background :avatar, processing_image_url: "/images/:style/processing.jpg"
end

@user = User.new(avatar: File.new(...))
@user.save
@user.avatar.url #=> "/images/original/processing.png"

# Process job

@user.reload
@user.avatar.url #=> "/system/images/3/original/IMG_2772.JPG?1267562148"

You can also define a custom logic for processing_image_url, for example to display the original picture while specific formats are being processed.

class Item < ActiveRecord::Base
  has_attached_file :photo

  process_in_background :photo, processing_image_url: :processing_image_fallback

  def processing_image_fallback
    options = photo.options
    options[:interpolator].interpolate(options[:url], photo, :original)
  end
end

Another option is to provide an object which responds to call to processing_image_url and returns the image url. The method will be called with the attachment as the argument.

class Item < ActiveRecord::Base
  has_attached_file :photo

  process_in_background :photo, processing_image_url: ->(attachment) {
    ActionController::Base.helpers.image_path("processing.gif")
  }
end

If you define the #{attachment_name}_processing column, but set the url_with_processing option to false, this opens up other options (other than modifying the url that paperclip returns) for giving feedback to the user while the image is processing. This is useful for advanced situations, for example when dealing with caching systems.

Note especially the method #processing? which passes through the value of the boolean created via migration.

class User < ActiveRecord::Base
  has_attached_file :avatar

  process_in_background :avatar, url_with_processing: false
end

@user = User.new(avatar: File.new(...))
@user.save
@user.avatar.url #=> "/system/images/3/original/IMG_2772.JPG?1267562148"
@user.avatar.processing? #=> true

# Process job

@user.reload
@user.avatar.url #=> "/system/images/3/original/IMG_2772.JPG?1267562148"
@user.avatar.processing? #=> false

This is useful if you don’t want the background job to reprocess all styles.

class User < ActiveRecord::Base
  has_attached_file :avatar, styles: { small: "25x25#", medium: "50x50#" }

  process_in_background :avatar, only_process: [:small]
end

Like paperclip, you could also supply a lambda function to define only_process dynamically.

class User < ActiveRecord::Base
  has_attached_file :avatar, styles: { small: "25x25#", medium: "50x50#" }

  process_in_background :avatar, only_process: lambda { |a| a.instance.small_supported? ? [:small, :large] : [:large] }
end

You can process some styles in the foreground and some in the background by setting only_process on both has_attached_file and process_in_background.

class User < ActiveRecord::Base
  has_attached_file :avatar, styles: { small: "25x25#", medium: "50x50#" }, only_process: [:small]

  process_in_background :avatar, only_process: [:medium]
end

This is useful if you don’t want the background job. It accepts individual styles too. Take note, normal reprocess! does not accept styles as arguments anymore. It will delegate to DelayedPaperclip and reprocess all styles.

class User < ActiveRecord::Base
  has_attached_file :avatar, styles: { small: "25x25#", medium: "50x50#" }

  process_in_background :avatar
end

@user.avatar.url #=> "/system/images/3/original/IMG_2772.JPG?1267562148"
@user.avatar.reprocess_without_delay!(:medium)

You can set queue name for background job. By default it's called "paperclip". You can set it by changing global default options or by:

class User < ActiveRecord::Base
  has_attached_file :avatar

  process_in_background :avatar, queue: "default"
end

Global defaults for all delayed_paperclip instances in your app can be defined by changing the DelayedPaperclip.options Hash, this can be useful for setting a default ‘processing image,’ so you won’t have to define it in every process_in_background definition.

If you’re using Rails you can define a Hash with default options in config/application.rb or in any of the config/environments/*.rb files on config.delayed_paperclip_defaults, these will get merged into DelayedPaperclip.options as your Rails app boots. An example:

module YourApp
  class Application < Rails::Application
    # Other code...

    config.delayed_paperclip_defaults = {
        url_with_processing: true,
        processing_image_url: 'custom_processing.png'
    }
  end
end

This library works no matter what kind of post-processing you are doing with Paperclip.

If you are using custom post-processing processors like this:

# ...

has_attached_file :avatar, styles: { thumb: '100x100>' },  processors: [:rotator]
process_in_background :avatar

def rotate!
  # ...
  avatar.reprocess!
  # ...
end

# ...

...you may encounter an issue where your post-processors are ignored (more info). In order to avoid this use reprocess_without_delay!

# ...

def rotate!
  # ...
  avatar.reprocess_without_delay!
  # ...
end

# ...

Yes.

Checkout out CONTRIBUTING. Run specs with:

# Rspec on all versions
bundle exec appraisal install
bundle exec appraisal rake

# Rspec on latest stable gems
bundle exec rake

# Rspec on specific rails version
bundle exec appraisal 5.0 rake