Adding a 'published_at' field to a Post model that has a 'published' boolean field

Question

My Post model has a boolean called "published":

schema.rb:*

  create_table "posts", :force => true do |t|
    t.string   "title"
    t.string   "content"
    t.integer  "user_id"
    t.datetime "created_at",                            :null => false
    t.datetime "updated_at",                            :null => false
    t.boolean  "published",          :default => false
  end

If it is true, the post is considered published, and it appears in the published section of the user's profile, and if it is false it appears in the draft section (sorry, but I'm not sure how to deal with the code duplication).

posts_controller.rb:

class PostsController < ApplicationController
  before_filter :authenticate_user!, :except => [:show, :index]

  def index
    @posts = Post.all
  end

etc...

users_controller.rb:

class UsersController < ApplicationController
  def index
    @users = User.all
  end

  def show
    @user = User.find(params[:id])
    @posts = @user.posts
  end

etc...

_shared/posts.thml:

   <h2>Published</h2>
    <% @posts.each do |post| %>
      <% if post.published? %>
        <div id="post-<%= post.id %>" class="post">
          <%= image_tag post.image.url(:medium) %>
          <h2 class="post-title"><%= link_to post.title, post %></h2>
          <%= link_to post.user.email, post.user %>
          <p><%= post.content %></p>
        </div>
      <% end %>
    <% end %>

    <h2>Draft</h2>
    <% @posts.each do |post| %>
      <% if not post.published? %>
        <div id="post-<%= post.id %>" class="post">
          <%= image_tag post.image.url(:medium) %>
          <h2 class="post-title"><%= link_to post.title, post %></h2>
          <%= link_to post.user.email, post.user %>
          <p><%= post.content %></p>
        </div>
      <% end %>
    <% end %>

Example:

users.html.erb:

<h2>User Show</h2>
<%= image_tag @user.avatar.url(:medium) %>
<span>Email: <%= @user.email %></span><br />
<span>ID: <%= @user.id %></span><br />

<%= render 'shared/posts' %>

index.html.erb

<%= render 'shared/posts' %>

(I know the views are a little bit messy. I think later on I will just show a text saying 'draft' beside each post draft).

The problem is that the posts will be sorted by their created_at date. I want them to be sorted by a published_at date in the post's index page (I think that makes more sense) .

I know how to add the published_at t.datetime field via migration. But I'm not sure what code to use for the logic in the published_at field.

Any suggestions?

(by the way, what sounds more correct? 'published_at' or 'published_on'?)

Answer 1

add in your table published_at (datetime) field. and when you publish then update the published_at field and then when you fetch data use order('published_at Desc')

@posts =  @users.posts.order('published_at DESC')

logic like in your controller

if params[:post][:published] == true # whatever you got in controller rather than params[:post][:published]
   @post.published_at = Time.now
else
  @post.published_at = ""
end

that means, when published value is true then above code perform in your controller and in your published_at field add value Time.now and if value of published is false then above code is not perform so published_at field have blank value.

or, by using model like

before_save :published_post

def published_post
  if self.published == true
   self.published_at = Time.now
  end
end

Answer 2

You should be able to adjust your controller:

def show
  @user      = User.find(params[:id])
  posts      = @user.posts.order('published_at').group_by(&:published)
  @published = posts[true]
  @drafts    = posts[false]
end

Then you can use @published and @drafts to produce your lists. If you want the most recently published ones first then:

posts = @user.posts.order('published_at desc').group_by(&:published)