Devise sign in/sign up in popup

Question

I'm developing an app with Ruby on Rails and bootstrap. I'm using the Devise gem for the authentication system. I generated the devise views but I don't like to use the pages/views for sign in/sign up. Instead I got a popup modal/form which I'm using. Right now my Sign In form looks like this:

<div class="form loginBox">
<%= form_for(resource, as: resource_name, url: session_path(resource_name)) do |f| %>
<%= devise_error_messages! %>

   <%= f.email_field :email, :class => "form-control", :placeholder => "Email" %>
   <%= f.password_field :password, :class => "form-control", :placeholder => "Password", autocomplete: "off" %>

   <% if devise_mapping.rememberable? -%>
   <%= f.check_box :remember_me, :style => "margin-top:20px;margin-bottom:20px;" %>
   <%= f.label :remember_me, :style => "margin-top:20px;margin-bottom:20px;" %>
   <% end -%>


   <%= f.submit "Sign In", :class => "btn btn-default btn-login" %>

   <% end %>
</div>

I put this in the application helper:

module ApplicationHelper


     def resource_name
        :user
      end

      def resource
        @resource ||= User.new
      end

      def devise_mapping
        @devise_mapping ||= Devise.mappings[:user]
      end
    end

When I press the Sign In button (submit-button) without filling out the fields I'm redirected to the /users/sign_in page where I get the devise error messages. The same happens with my registration form.

How can I prevent this from happening? What should I do about the original devise views to not show them? Am I doing this the wrong way?

I'm quite new with Ruby and Rails and I'm happy I atleast got the authentication Sign In/Sign Up process to work using the popup forms I have. Its just that I'm not sure I did this the right way as I got the problem mentioned above.

Thanks a lot in advance! /Jacob

Answer 1

You need a custom sessions controller and some extra configuration.

Step 1: Enable devise to respond with JSON

 # config/initializers/devise.rb

config.http_authenticatable_on_xhr = false
config.navigational_formats = ["*/*", :html, :json]

Step 2: Add mappings (I can see that you already did that)

 # app/helpers/application_helper.rb

module ApplicationHelper
  def resource_name
    :user
  end

  def resource
    @resource ||= User.new
  end

  def devise_mapping
    @devise_mapping ||= Devise.mappings[:user]
  end
end

Step 3: Add a custom controller

 # app/controllers/sessions_controller.rb

class SessionsController  

  def create
   resource = warden.authenticate!(:scope => resource_name, :recall => '#{controller_path}#failure')
    sign_in_and_redirect(resource_name, resource)
  end

  def sign_in_and_redirect(resource_or_scope, resource=nil)
    scope = Devise::Mapping.find_scope!(resource_or_scope)
    resource ||= resource_or_scope
    sign_in(scope, resource) unless warden.user(scope) == resource
    return render :json => {:success => true}
  end

  def failure
    return render :json => {:success => false, :errors => ["Login failed."]}
  end
end

Here what's special about the controller is that we return everything in :json

Step 3: Override the controllers:

  # config/routes.rb

devise_for :users, :controllers => {sessions: 'sessions'}

Now devise uses the custom sessions controller.

Step 4: Add your custom form (with :remote=> true)

%h2 Sign in
   <%= devise_error_messages! %>
   <%= form_for(resource, :as => resource_name, :url => session_path(resource_name) ,:html => {:id => "login-box"},:format => :json, :remote => true ) do |f| %>

   <%= f.password_field :password, :class => "form-control", :placeholder => "Password", autocomplete: "off" %>

       <% if devise_mapping.rememberable? -%>
       <%= f.check_box :remember_me, :style => "margin-top:20px;margin-bottom:20px;" %>
       <%= f.label :remember_me, :style => "margin-top:20px;margin-bottom:20px;" %>
       <% end -%>


       <%= f.submit "Sign In", :class => "btn btn-default btn-login" %>

       <% end %>
    </div>

Step 5: Add the javascript

$("form#login-box").bind "ajax:success", (e, data, status, xhr) ->
    if data.success
      //javascript that executes if everything goes o.k.
      $('#sign_in').modal('hide')
      $('#sign_in_button').hide()
      $('#submit_comment').slideToggle(1000, "easeOutBack" )
    else
      alert('failure!')

This should work