Allow the resource :title attribute to reference a computed field in its resource.

[tvongaza]

A pretty standard use case is having a resource's title being made up of some computed value - example first & last names. From my testing it seems like the resource's title calls the backing model with the supplied title method. It would be nice to instead have it call its own resource's field, keeping all the resources display logic together.

Example of what I'd like to do:

class ContactResource < Avo::BaseResource
  self.title = :name
  self.includes = []

  field :id, as: :id
  field :name, as: :text, link_to_resource: true do |model|
    "#{model.first_name} #{model.last_name}"
  end
  field :first_name, as: :text, hide_on: [:index, :show]
  field :last_name, as: :text, hide_on: [:index, :show]
end

[Paul-Bob]

Hi @tvongaza. I can see several use cases here

We want to use name on several lines of our app

In this scenario the correct approach would be to define a method inside the model:

def name
  "#{first_name} #{last_name}"
end

We want to use name only as a resource field (index and show views)

In this case we can do both, or we create the method inside the model as above (don't if you consider that's polluting the model with methods that just Avo uses) or we just can do that computed field as shown on your example.

We want to use name only on title

In this case (right now) we are forced to create that method inside the model. This is not great. Here I see the limitation and I think making the resource's title attribute callable would solve the issue. With title callable we would be able to do something like this.

self.title = -> {  "#{model.first_name} #{model.last_name}" }

Why I think this is better than using the resource field? Because in this scenario we do not want that field only on title and that would force us to do something like this:

class SomeResource < Avo::BaseResource
  self.title = :name

  # unused
  field :name, as: :text, hide_on: [:forms, :show, :index] do |model|
    "#{model.first_name} #{model.last_name}"
  end
end

Described scenario where name it's used as field and as title

Now, if we go to the next scenario (that described by you) where you want to use it as a resource field and as a resource title you will end up with duplicated code, something like:

class ContactResource < Avo::BaseResource
  self.title = -> { "#{model.first_name} #{model.last_name}" } # duplicated
  self.includes = []

  field :id, as: :id
  field :name, as: :text, link_to_resource: true do |model|
    "#{model.first_name} #{model.last_name}" # duplicated
  end
  field :first_name, as: :text, hide_on: [:index, :show]
  field :last_name, as: :text, hide_on: [:index, :show]
end

To solve this duplication i think we should have the following approach on title attribute:

1. Try to call name method on model.
2. If fails, try to get it from resource.
3. Any way allow it to be callable and computed without any of above dependencies.

@adrianthedev what do you think?

[tvongaza]

Thanks @Paul-Bob, this came up because as I new user to Avo I expected the following code to use the name field on the resource, not call a name method on the backing model.

class SomeResource < Avo::BaseResource
  self.title = :name # Expected this to reference the :name field below, but this is not the case

  field :name, as: :text, hide_on: [:forms, :show, :index] do |model|
    "#{model.first_name} #{model.last_name}"
  end
end

I would suggest your title attribute order should be tweaked such that it tries to use the resource's field first, if not found tries to get it from the model.

Alternatively we could do something like:

self.title = -> { "#{resource.get_field:(name).value}" }  # or whatever the best way to get the computed value from the resource is - this just seems counter intuitive when in the mental context of its own file

[tvongaza]

I whipped up a quick MonkeyPatch to show how I as a new user expected the self.title = :name referencing the resources computed :name field to work. This is likely incomplete as I'm unsure everwhere in Avo the resource title is used.

module Aeon
  module Overrides
    module AvoBaseResource
      extend ActiveSupport::Concern
      included do
        def model_title
          return get_field(self.title).value
        end
      end
    end
    module AvoFieldsBelongsToField
      extend ActiveSupport::Concern
      included do
        def label
          self.target_resource.hydrate(model: self.value).model_title
        end
      end
    end
  end
end

Avo::BaseResource.include(Aeon::Overrides::AvoBaseResource)
Avo::Fields::BelongsToField.include(Aeon::Overrides::AvoFieldsBelongsToField)