Using ActiveAdmin as a Backend in Rails 5 Application

calendar Updated December 05, 2022
Dmitry Zhuk
Ruby Developer
Using ActiveAdmin as a Backend in Rails 5 Application

Preparations

I will be using:

  • Ruby 2.4.0
  • Rails 5 with API key enabled
  • SQLite
  • ActiveAdmin

Preparing application:

1. Create a folder for application:

mkdir rails5_api_activeadmin
cd rails5_api_activeadmin

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2. Create Gemset for application and install rails gem:

rvm use 2.4.0@rails5_api_activeadmin --ruby-version --create
gem install rails

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3. Initialize a new git repository and generate a blank Rails 5 application:

git init
rails new . --api

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4. Rails installed:

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5. Adding IDE settings folder to .gitignore and committing changes:

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6. Now launch a server and check if it’s working (I am launching it on port 3080, but the default is 3000):

rails s -p 3080

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Database Models

This application will be used as a service for ordering food from local restaurants. So we need to have a few database models:

  • Dish (title, type, ingredients, description, price)

1. Scaffolding restaurant model

I will use built-in Rails scaffold generator and define fields, that have to be created in a database, providing field type. The default type is string, so it can be skipped. The model Dish will belong to model Restaurant and Restaurant can have many dishes. Also, I will use Enumerable on a dish type field.

rails g scaffold Restaurant title description
rails g scaffold Dish title dish_type:integer ingredients description price:decimal restaurant:belongs_to

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We can ignore warnings in this case (rails code is not updated to the changes in Ruby 2.4.0).

And I used rails trick to tell, that model dish belongs to model Restaurant.

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Now I have to tell that Restaurant has many dishes and set dishes type:

class Restaurant < ApplicationRecord
  has_many :dishes
end

class Dish < ApplicationRecord
  belongs_to :restaurant
  enum type: [:european, :pan_asian, :wok, :non_alcohol_drink, :alcohol_drink]
end

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Enum will provide our application with automatically generated methods for dish type. And it will be saved in a database as an integer starting with 0 where each next number will correspond to a dish type. For example 0 for european, 1 for pan asian, 2 for wok

2. Migrating Database, configuring controllers and creating test data

Now I have to migrate the database and create dummy data:

rails db:migrate
rails c

Restaurant.create(title: 'First Restaurant', description: "It's first")
restaurant = Restaurant.first
restaurant.dishes.burger.create(title: 'Country Burger', ingredients: "beef steak, goat cheese, red pepper, salad,
onion, Italian balsamic glaze, olive oil, brioche bread bun, salt, pepper", description: 'Great burger', price: 2.99)

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Now if I visit http://localhost:3080/restaurants or http://localhost:3080/dishes I will see data, stored in DB, in JSON format:

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But I want to see all dishes that restaurant have on its page and restaurant name on a dishes page, so I have to make some changes to corresponding controllers:

class RestaurantsController < ApplicationController
  def show
    render json: @restaurant, include: 'dishes'
  end
end

class DishesController < ApplicationController
  def index
    @dishes = Dish.all
    render json: @dishes, include: 'restaurant'
  end
end

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And I see updated info in JSON:

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3. Setting up ActiveAdmin

First of all, I need to add required gems to Gemfile:

gem 'inherited_resources', github: 'activeadmin/inherited_resources'
gem 'activeadmin', '~> 1.0.0.pre4'
gem 'ransack', github: 'activerecord-hackery/ransack'
gem 'kaminari', github: 'amatsuda/kaminari', branch: '0-17-stable'
gem 'formtastic', github: 'justinfrench/formtastic'
gem 'draper', github: 'audionerd/draper', branch: 'rails5', ref: 'e816e0e587'
gem 'activemodel-serializers-xml', github: 'rails/activemodel-serializers-xml'
gem 'jquery-ui-rails', '~> 5.0.4'

And install them:

bundle install

After that, we have to update app/controllers/application_controller from

class ApplicationController < ActionController::API
end

to

class ApplicationController < ActionController::Base
end

And config/application.rb

module NewApiApp
class Application < Rails::Application
# ...
config.middleware.use ActionDispatch::Flash
config.middleware.use Rack::MethodOverride
config.middleware.use ActionDispatch::Cookies
end
end

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Now I will install ActiveAdmin. I won’t be using any authentication, so I skip them.

rails g active_admin:install --skip-users
rails db:migrate

When I visit http://localhost:3080/admin I see ActiveAdmin dashboard:

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4. Creating and configuring ActiveAdmin resources

Now I have to generate ActiveAdmin resources:

It will add sections to create, list, update and delete dishes and restaurants, but default views and forms don’t satisfy my needs, so I will update them

First of all, I will update app/admin/restaurant.rb, so it shows restaurant dishes count on the index page and dishes list on the show page. And also I tell ActiveAdmin, which parameters can be changed:

ActiveAdmin.register Restaurant do
index do
column :title
column :description
column :dishes_count do |product|
product.dishes.count
end
actions
end
show do |restaurant|
attributes_table do
row :title
row :description
end
panel 'Dishes' do
table_for restaurant.dishes do |t|
t.column :title
t.column :dish_type
t.column :ingredients
t.column :description
t.column :price
end
end
end
permit_params :title, :description
end

After that, I will update dish edit form so I can choose dish type from the list. To do that, I have to create a form partial at app/views/admin/dishes/_form.html.erb:

<%= semantic_form_for [:admin, @dish], builder: Formtastic::FormBuilder do |f| %>
<%= f.semantic_errors %>
<%= f.inputs do %>
<%= f.input :restaurant_id, as: :select, collection: Hash[Restaurant.all.collect{|r| [r.title, r.id]}], include_blank: false %>
<%= f.input :title %>
<%= f.input :dish_type, as: :select, collection: Dish.dish_types.keys, include_blank: false %>
<%= f.input :description %>
<%= f.input :ingredients %>
<%= f.input :price %>
<% end %>
<%= f.actions %>
<% end %>

And render it from app/admin/dish.rb:

ActiveAdmin.register Dish do
  form partial: 'form'
  permit_params :restaurant_id, :title, :dish_type, :description, :ingredients, :price
end

Now I can create, read, update and destroy restaurants and dishes from application backend.

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Conclusions

ActiveAdmin can be used if you need to implement backend for your database. It is flexible, customizable and can be easily integrated.

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