Introduction

RealtimeValidations is a Rails 3.1 gem that allows you to easily validate your forms. It is very easy to use, clean and yet powerful.

Why

It is smart in the sense that is able to fulfill any kind of validation.

Also, it allows to add some information based on the current session, user, client… so the model has all the required information to perform a complete validation test.

It is very generic and is not tied to any specific case of use.

Remember

This gem is simple. Very simple. It is developed with some things in mind:

• Forget about validations at client side.

  • All this logic is placed at the model, and is how it should be.

• Do not replicate logic in javascript.

  • Never, ever replicate logic.

  • Someone updates some validation on some model, and javascript is forgotten to be updated.

  • You need to replicate the same logic in two different languages with their implementation differences.

• Highly configurable.

  • There are three hooks to configure the behaviour as you want.

    1. Server: when the Controller module is included into the ValidationsController class.

       • Here you can remove or add filters.

    2. Server: before asking for the model validity.

       • You can add extra information to the model here based on the knowledge of the current situation of the ApplicationController, such as the current client id or user id.

    3. Client: before sending the request to the ValidationsController.

       • Here you are able to add more information to the request, for instance retrieving it from a meta tag on the page or wherever you want, is up to you.

Dependencies

RealtimeValidations gem does not have too many dependencies:

• Rails 3.1.

• jquery-rails.

Installation

Installation is very easy on your own project:

Gemfile

gem 'realtime-validations'

Running generators

rails g realtime_validations:install

Assets pipeline

Include the core javascript of the application:

# app/assets/javascripts/application.js
//= require realtime_validations

If you want to use the default error messages, you need to include the stylesheet too:

# app/assets/stylesheets/application.css
*= require realtime_validations

Usage

Usage is very transparent from your project:

Views

You should use form_validated_for instead of form_for on your forms in order for them to automatically validate.

Error messages

You can write your own error messages handlers. There are two hooks in JQuery that will be executed in order to show and hide errors, and that can be found commented out on the JS file installed by the generator.

RealtimeValidations.showErrors = function(field, errors) {
}

RealtimeValidations.hideErrors = function(field) {
}

There is a default implementation for both, and you can use that one if you want. If you need a more personalized error reporting or more sophisticated you will have to code your own. :)