Clarification on how to use “thumbs_up” voting gem with Rails 3

Question

I am attempting to implement the thumbs_up voting gem on a Rails 3 app, however the instructions are unclear on the actual implementation. After requiring the gem [g

Answer 1

Hopefully I can help you out a bit.

The generators should have created a Vote model for you. This is the model that holds all the votes, but that you interact with indirectly through the methods you've described above.

So, for you:

class User < ActiveRecord::Base
  acts_as_voter
end

class Post < ActiveRecord::Base
  acts_as_voteable
end

That will get you set up with the thumbs_up methods in each of the models.

Then for example, if you have a controller action in PostsController that is linked to from an "up arrow" on your website, you can create a vote for that user for that post.

A view like this:

<%= link_to('vote for this post!', vote_up_post_path(@post), :method => :post) %>

and a routes.rb like this:

resources :posts do
  member do
    post :vote_up
  end
end

And finally, in the controller:

class PostsController < ApplicationController
  def vote_up
    begin
      current_user.vote_for(@post = Post.find(params[:id]))
      render :nothing => true, :status => 200
    rescue ActiveRecord::RecordInvalid
      render :nothing => true, :status => 404
    end
  end
end