Settings for Rails

Ruby gem to handle settings for ActiveRecord instances by storing them as serialized Hash in a separate database table. Namespaces and defaults included.

Requirements

• Ruby 3.2 or newer
• Rails 6.1 or newer (including Rails 8.0)

Installation

Include the gem in your Gemfile and run bundle to install it:

gem 'ledermann-rails-settings'

Generate and run the migration:

rails g rails_settings:migration
rake db:migrate

Usage

Define settings

class User < ActiveRecord::Base
  has_settings do |s|
    s.key :dashboard, :defaults => { :theme => 'blue', :view => 'monthly', :filter => false }
    s.key :calendar,  :defaults => { :scope => 'company'}
  end
end

If no defaults are needed, a simplified syntax can be used:

class User < ActiveRecord::Base
  has_settings :dashboard, :calendar
end

Every setting is handled by the class RailsSettings::SettingObject. You can use your own class, e.g. for validations:

class Project < ActiveRecord::Base
  has_settings :info, :class_name => 'ProjectSettingObject'
end

class ProjectSettingObject < RailsSettings::SettingObject
  validate do
    unless self.owner_name.present? && self.owner_name.is_a?(String)
      errors.add(:base, "Owner name is missing")
    end
  end
end

In case you need to define settings separatedly for the same models, you can use the persistent option

module UserDashboardConcern
  extend ActiveSupport::Concern

  included do
    has_settings persistent: true do |s|
      s.key :dashboard
    end
  end
end

class User < ActiveRecord::Base
  has_settings persistent: true do |s|
    s.key :calendar
  end
end

Set settings

user = User.find(1)
user.settings(:dashboard).theme = 'black'
user.settings(:calendar).scope = 'all'
user.settings(:calendar).display = 'daily'
user.save! # saves new or changed settings, too

or

user = User.find(1)
user.settings(:dashboard).update! :theme => 'black'
user.settings(:calendar).update! :scope => 'all', :display => 'daily'

Get settings

user = User.find(1)
user.settings(:dashboard).theme
# => 'black

user.settings(:dashboard).view
# => 'monthly'  (it's the default)

user.settings(:calendar).scope
# => 'all'

Delete settings

user = User.find(1)
user.settings(:dashboard).update! :theme => nil

user.settings(:dashboard).view = nil
user.settings(:dashboard).save!

Using scopes

User.with_settings
# => all users having any setting

User.without_settings
# => all users without having any setting

User.with_settings_for(:calendar)
# => all users having a setting for 'calendar'

User.without_settings_for(:calendar)
# => all users without having settings for 'calendar'

Eager Loading

User.includes(:setting_objects)
# => Eager load setting_objects when querying many users

Compatibility

Version 2 is a complete rewrite and has a new DSL, so it's not compatible with Version 1. In addition, Rails 2.3 is not supported anymore. But the database schema is unchanged, so you can continue to use the data created by 1.x, no conversion is needed.

If you don't want to upgrade, you find the old version in the 1.x branch. But don't expect any updates there.

Changelog

See https://github.com/ledermann/rails-settings/releases

License

MIT License

Copyright (c) 2012-2024 Georg Ledermann

This gem is a complete rewrite of rails-settings by Alex Wayne