Customizing Filters

Setup¶ ↑

In this document we will be using 3 models: User, Event and EventUser so we can demonstrate some amazing filtering capabilities of the gem. Here are the table definitions of the models.

Users Table

create_table :users do |t|
   t.string    :first_name
   t.string    :last_name
   t.date      :birthday
   t.string    :sex
   t.timestamps
 end

Events Table

create_table :events do |t|
  t.integer   :creator_id
  t.string    :type
  t.string    :name
  t.string    :headline
  t.datetime  :start_time
  t.datetime  :end_time

  t.timestamps
end
add_index :events, [:creator_id]

Event Users Table

create_table :event_users do |t|
  t.integer :event_id
  t.integer :user_id
  t.timestamps
end
add_index :event_users, [:event_id]
add_index :event_users, [:user_id]
add_index :event_users, [:event_id, :user_id]

Here are the actual model objects with their associations:

User Model

class User < ActiveRecord::Base
  has_many :events
  has_many :events_users
end

Event Model

class Event < ActiveRecord::Base
  belongs_to :user, :class_name => 'User', :foreign_key => :creator_id
  has_many :event_users
end

EventUser Model

class EventUser < ActiveRecord::Base
  belongs_to :event
  belongs_to :user
end

We will also use a samples_controller with an index action. The controller code looks like this:

class SamplesController < ApplicationController
  def index
    # All examples assume you are placing the code in here
  end
end

The index.html.erb will simply look like this:

<%= will_filter_tag(@users)%>

In some cases we will use @users in other cases @events or @event_users

Basic Filters¶ ↑

Creating a basic filter is just a matter of adding the following lines of code to your controller:

class OrdersController < ApplicationController

  def index
    @users = User.filter(:params => params)
  end

end

And adding a filter display tags to your page: (index.html.erb)

<%= will_filter_tag(@users) %>

If you would like to display the will_filter table, you can add the following tag right below the filter tag: (index.html.erb)

<%= will_filter_table_tag(@orders) %>

Note: Since we are not going to be looking at the table tag here, assume it is always present on the page.

This will create the following filter on the page: