Rails - Passing parameters from a view to a controller

Question

I am trying to implement a "Settings" page to my website. In this page, the user can change some basic settings, such as their email and subscription to emails. Right now, I am just trying to get them to be able to unsubscribe from emails. When first signing up, they have the option of checking a checkbox, and the value is stored in a mysql database. Now, I am having difficulty figuring out how to change it from a different page. Here is what the controller for signing up looks like:

class SignUpsController < ApplicationController

  def index    
  end

  def new
    @user = SignUp.new
  end

  def cost
    return 10
  end

  def create

    @user = SignUp.new(sign_ups_params)

    if @user.save!
      UserMailer.welcome_email(@user).deliver

      flash[:notice] = "Thank you " + @user.first_name + ", account created     successfully."
      redirect_to(:controller => 'home')

    else
      flash[:error] = "something failed"
      redirect_to :back
    end
  rescue
    flash[:error] = "Failed to create user, email is taken or passwords do     not match"
    redirect_to :back
   end

  private
    def sign_ups_params
  params.require(:sign_ups).permit(:first_name, :last_name, :email,     :password, :password_confirmation, :subscription)
    end
end

Here is a portion of the view for the sign up page to show how I went about filling out and submitting the form:

<h3>Create New User</h3>

    <%= form_for(:sign_ups, :url => {:action => 'create'}) do |f| %>

    <table summary="Subject form fields">
      <tr>
        <th>First Name</th>
        <td><%= f.text_field(:first_name) %></td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <th>Last Name</th>
        <td><%= f.text_field(:last_name) %></td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <th>Email</th>
        <td><%= f.email_field(:email) %></td>

      </tr>
      <tr>
        <th>Password</th>
        <td><%= f.password_field(:password) %></td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <th>Password Conformation</th>
        <td><%= f.password_field(:password_confirmation) %></td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <th>Subscribe to email</th>
        <td><%= f.check_box(:subscription) %></td>
      </tr>

    </table>
    <input class="btn btn-primary" name="commit" type="submit" value="Create User"/>
  </div>

I have made a "Profile" view and controller for the settings page, but am not sure if that is the proper way of doing it, or if I should just use the sign ups controller. Thank you in advance!

Answer 1

You can and should use your signups_controller since you want to give the user the ability to edit his SignUp record (or registration).

You only need to add a few things to make this work. first, create an edit and an update action in your controller:

def edit
  @user = SignUp.find(params[:id])
end

def update
  @user = SignUp.find(params[:id])
  respond_to do |format|
    if @user.update(sign_up_params)
      # do this
    else
      # do that
    end
  end
end

Also rename your sign_ups_params to its singular form => sign_up_params

And your corresponding views

views/sign_ups/edit.html.erb
<%= render 'form' %>

views/sign_ups/_form.html.erb
<%= form_for(@user, :url => {:action => 'update'}) do |f| %>
....

since you probably have resources :sign_ups in your config/routes.rb, you should be good to go.

---

Seperating the SignUp from your Profile probably makes life harder than it has to be, except if you use a gem like devise (which does that) in a very clean way.

Which object are you trying to update, or which object holds the attributes you want to update?

If you want to update sign_up_params , do so in your SignUpsController and also add your update action as the error you get suggests. However, if you need to update profile_params, do that in your ProfilesController .

Probably you'll see the confusion now. Consider yourself looking into someone elses code, seeing a ProfilesController as well as a SignUpsController create action.

Why not just having a ProfilesController where the sign_up is the create action for a Profile object?

In case you keep this in your SignUpsController move edit as well as update there.