Greetings, I was hoping to get some feedback on a plugin I wrote.
The plugin is called conflict_warnings and is currently available from my github repository at http://github.com/EmFi/conflict_warnings The purpose of the plugin is to provide a simple methods of preventing data inconsistencies that could arise from multiple users interacting with the same resource. Under basic operation a before filter will be triggered if the resource was modified between the time the referring page was loaded and the request was received. The goal being to halt the request, update the referring page and inform the user that the resource has changed and their action may not have the desired effect. Under more advanced use it can conceivable be used for so much more: - Only update portions of a record that have changed and highlight them with Prototype or jQuery (requires some kind of model version tracking, maybe acts_as_audited) - Simplify actions upon failing to acquire a lock. - Enabling/Disabling some actions by when they occur. Usage/Examples. class ExamplesController < ApplicationController filter_conflicts :only => :confirm do respond_to do |format| format.html {render :action => "show"} format.js { render :update do |page| page.replace_html :notificaiton_area, :text => "Your request could not be processed because the example has been modified recently. Please try again" page.replace_html :status, :text => @example.status page.visual_effect :highlight, :status flash.discard end } end end end If the a user loads the the show page for an example, and that same example is modified by another user before that first user confirms, that first users' attempt to confirm is blocked. LockingResource example: class LockingResourcesController < ApplicationController before_filter :login_required, :acquire_lock protected def acquire_lock catch_resources_unavailable current_user, :accessor => :acquire_lock_for_user, :message => "Could not acquire lock" end end If user cannot acquire a lock they are redirected back to the referring page with the message "Could not acquire lock" contained in flash[:warnings] The documentation describes the plugins' usage and options in much more detail. I know there are other ways of solving this problem, validations take care of many cases covered by this plugin, and periodic remote requests could be used to keep the pages updated. But, the asynchronous nature of periodic requests were not good enough for my needs. As I said, I'm looking for any kind of feedback, let me know if any of the documentation or examples are unclear. Feature requests and of course criticism is also welcome. Thanks in advance for any time you may spend checking it out. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Ruby on Rails: Talk" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/rubyonrails-talk?hl=en.
