TheComments

TheComments - The best Rails gem for blog-style comments

:question: Why is TheComments better than other gems?

Features

Threaded comments
Useful cache counters
Admin UI for moderation
Mountable Engine.routes
Online Support via skype: ilya.killich
Denormalization for recent comments
Production-ready commenting system for Rails 4+
Designed for preprocessors such as Sanitize, Textile, Markdown etc.

:books: Documentation

If you have any questions

Please try playing around with the Dummy App in the spec folder first. An example integration is often better than any documentation! Thanks.

How to start the dummy app (screencast)

Quick Start Installation

NB: In the following examples, Posts is the model to which comments are being added. For your app, the model might be Articles or similar instead.

1. Install Gems

Gemfile

gem "the_comments", "~> 2.2.1"

gem 'haml'                # or gem 'slim'
gem 'awesome_nested_set'  # or same gem

Bundle

bundle

Don't forget to restart your server!

2. Add migrations

rake the_comments_engine:install:migrations

Will create:

xxxxx_change_user.rb
xxxxx_create_comments.rb
xxxxx_change_commentable.rb

:warning: Open and change xxxxx_change_commentable.rb migration

class ChangeCommentable < ActiveRecord::Migration
  def change
    # Additional fields to Commentable Models
    # [:posts, :articles, ... ]

    # There is only Post model is commentable
    [:posts].each do |table_name|
      change_table table_name do |t|
        t.integer :draft_comments_count,     default: 0
        t.integer :published_comments_count, default: 0
        t.integer :deleted_comments_count,   default: 0
      end
    end
  end
end

:warning: Open and change xxxxx_change_user.rb migration

class TheCommentsChangeUser < ActiveRecord::Migration
  def change
    #if you User class is not called User, you may want to change it.
    change_table :users do |t|
      # "Written by me" (cache counters)
      t.integer :my_draft_comments_count,      default: 0
      t.integer :my_published_comments_count,  default: 0
      t.integer :my_comments_count,            default: 0 # my_draft_comments_count + my_published_comments_count

      # commentable's comments => comcoms (cache counters)
      # Relation through Comment#holder_id field
      t.integer :draft_comcoms_count,     default: 0
      t.integer :published_comcoms_count, default: 0
      t.integer :deleted_comcoms_count,   default: 0
      t.integer :spam_comcoms_count,      default: 0
    end
  end
end

Invoke migrations

rake db:migrate

3. Code installation

rails g the_comments install

Will create:

config/initializers/the_comments.rb
app/controllers/comments_controller.rb
app/models/comment.rb

:warning: Open each file and follow the instructions

4. Models modifictions

app/models/user.rb

class User < ActiveRecord::Base
  include TheComments::User

  has_many :posts

  # IT'S JUST AN EXAMPLE OF ANY ROLE SYSTEM 
  def admin?
    self == User.first
  end

  # YOU HAVE TO IMPLEMENT YOUR ROLE POLICY FOR COMMENTS HERE
  def comments_admin?
    admin?
  end

  def comments_moderator? comment
    id == comment.holder_id
  end
end

app/models/post.rb

class Post < ActiveRecord::Base
  include TheComments::Commentable

  belongs_to :user

  # Denormalization methods
  # Check the documentation for information on advanced usage
  def commentable_title
    "Undefined Post Title"
  end

  def commentable_url
    "#"
  end

  def commentable_state
    "published"
  end
end

5. Add routes

config/routes.rb

MyApp::Application.routes.draw do
  root 'posts#index'
  resources :posts

  # ...

  # TheComments routes
  concern   :user_comments,  TheComments::UserRoutes.new
  concern   :admin_comments, TheComments::AdminRoutes.new
  resources :comments, concerns:  [:user_comments, :admin_comments]
end

Refer to the documentation for more information

6. Add to Application Controller

app/controllers/application_controller.rb

class ApplicationController < ActionController::Base
  include TheComments::ViewToken

  # Prevent CSRF attacks by raising an exception.
  # For APIs, you may want to use :null_session instead.
  protect_from_forgery with: :exception
end

7. Install assets

app/assets/stylesheets/application.css

/*
 *= require the_comments
*/

app/assets/javascripts/application.js

//= require the_comments

8. Example controller code

app/controllers/posts_controller.rb

def show
  @post     = Post.find params[:id]
  @comments = @post.comments.with_state([:draft, :published])
end

9. Example view code

app/views/posts/show.html.haml

= render partial: 'the_comments/tree', locals: { commentable: @post, comments_tree: @comments }

Common problems

For error with unpermitted parameters in webserver output.

Example:

Unpermitted parameters: commentable_type, commentable_id

User Load (0.3ms)  SELECT  "users".* FROM "users"  WHERE "users"."id" = 1  ORDER BY "users"."id" ASC LIMIT 1

Completed 500 Internal Server Error in 8ms

Add the following to your Comments Controller.

def comment_params
  params
  .require(:comment)
  .permit(:title, :contacts, :raw_content, :parent_id, :commentable_type, :commentable_id)
  .merge(denormalized_fields)
  .merge(request_data_for_comment)
  .merge(tolerance_time: params[:tolerance_time].to_i)
  .merge(user: current_user, view_token: comments_view_token)
end

See here.

For errors with around_validation.

Example:

NoMethodError - protected method `around_validation' called for #<StateMachine::Machine:0x007f84148c3c60>:

Create a new file config/state_machine.rb.

# Rails 4.1.0.rc1 and StateMachine don't play nice
# https://github.com/pluginaweek/state_machine/issues/295

require 'state_machine/version'

unless StateMachine::VERSION == '1.2.0'
  # If you see this message, please test removing this file
  # If it's still required, please bump up the version above
  Rails.logger.warn "Please remove me, StateMachine version has changed"
end

module StateMachine::Integrations::ActiveModel
  public :around_validation
end

See here.

Feedback

:speech_balloon: My twitter: @iam_teacher hashtag: #the_comments

Acknowledgments

Anna Nechaeva (my wife) - for love and my happy life
@tanraya (Andrew Kozlov) - for code review
@solenko (Anton Petrunich) - for mountable routes
@pyromaniac (Arkadiy Zabazhanov) - for consulting

MIT License

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.