RailsAdmin

RailsAdmin is a Rails engine that provides an easy-to-use interface for managing your data.

RailsAdmin started as a port of MerbAdmin to Rails 3 and was implemented as a Ruby Summer of Code project by Bogdan Gaza with mentors Erik Michaels-Ober, Yehuda Katz, Luke van der Hoeven, and Rein Henrichs.

It currently offers the following features:

• Display database tables
• Create new data
• Easily update data
• Safely delete data
• Automatic form validation
• Search and filtering
• Export data to CSV/JSON/XML
• Authentication (via Devise)
• User action history

See the demo here: http://demo.railsadmin.org/

Supported ORMs:

• ActiveRecord

Notices

:attr_accessible is now taken into account: restricted fields are not editable anymore, and mass-assignement security isn't bypassed anymore. Be careful if you whitelist attributes, you'll need to whitelist association 'id' methods as well : division_id, player_ids, commentable_type, commentable_id, etc.

Default scopes are now fully active in list views (ordering is overriden, obvisously) as they used to a while ago. This is not configurable (that would bring consistency issues with cancan scoping which brings default scope). If you don't want some default scopes in RailsAdmin, either move your scoping rules to cancan, or activate your default scope conditionnaly on user/url prefix.

Configuration with ActiveRecord::Base#rails_admin is not recommended anymore and should be considered as expermimental (development) until further notice. Unfortunately, implementation of this feature is tougher than imagined. Any help is welcome, as usual. Please remove any rails_admin configuration from your ActiveRecord model and put it inside an initializer (as shown in this documentation now). Use:

RailsAdmin.config do |config|

  ...

  config.model MyActiveRecordModel do
    # MyActiveRecordModel configuration
  end

  ...

end

Instead of:

class MyActiveRecordModel < ActiveRecord::Base
  rails_admin do
    # MyActiveRecordModel configuration
  end
end

Please refer to issue http://github.com/sferik/rails_admin/issues/289

The master branch currently targets Rails 3.1.

If you are updating from a Rails 3.0 application, you will no longer need to update your assets, they will be served from the engine (through Sprockets). You can delete all RailsAdmin related assets in your public directory. Make sure to activate the asset pipeline in application.rb:

config.assets.enabled = true

and to add this to your config/routes:

mount RailsAdmin::Engine => '/admin', :as => 'rails_admin'

You may continue to use RailsAdmin with Rails 3.0 by specifying the rails-3.0 branch in your Gemfile, however, this branch is no longer being actively maintained by the RailsAdmin Core Team.

gem 'rails_admin', :git => 'git://github.com/sferik/rails_admin.git', :branch => 'rails-3.0'

:truncated? has been removed, use pretty_value instead to fine-tune the output of your field in show and list views.

Important notice about BelongsToAssociation: In the DSL, they now must be referenced by the association name, not the child_key. Considering:

# `user_id: integer` (DB)
belongs_to :user # (ActiveRecord)

Instead of:

field :user_id

You must use:

field :user

field :user_id now references the column (automatically hidden), which type is Integer, not the BelongToAssociation.

The model configuration dropdown has been deprecated in favor of navigation_label. API unchanged.

The field configuration method show_partial has been removed in favor of field configuration pretty_value, which is used more globally and consistently across the whole application. Show partials are no longer in use, method doesn't exist anymore.

RailsAdmin::Config::Sections::List.default_items_per_page has been moved to RailsAdmin::Config.default_items_per_page.

RailsAdmin::Config::Sections::Export.default_hidden_fields has been moved to RailsAdmin::Config.default_hidden_fields_for_export.

RailsAdmin::Config::Sections::Update.default_hidden_fields has been moved to RailsAdmin::Config.default_hidden_fields, it now affects show, create and update views.

RailsAdmin.authenticate_with, RailsAdmin.authorize_with, RailsAdmin.current_user_method and RailsAdmin.configure_with have been moved under RailsAdmin::Config and are to be used inside the initializer configuration block eg. RailsAdmin.config {|config| config.authorize_with :cancan }.

ActiveRecord::Base.rails_admin is the new recommendation for configuring models as that way configuration can be reloaded per request in development mode. The old API is not deprecated as the new one is just a proxy for RailsAdmin::Config.model.

navigation.max_visible_tabs is not configurable anymore, as the new Activo theme implements the main navigation as a vertical list.

object_label is not directly configurable anymore, as it lead to performance issues when used with a list of records. Please use object_label_method instead.

The ability to set model labels for each section (list, navigation, update, ...) has been removed, as it was deemed unnecessarily granular and was not fully honored in all displays. That also means that the methods label_for_navigation, etc. are no longer functional. They print a warning at the moment. See details in the examples below for the currently supported way to label models. This change was motivated by the conversation following a bug report about label display errors.

The ability to set model visibility for each section has been removed due to same reasons as section specific label configuration (see above paragraph). This also means that methods such as hide_from_navigation and show_in_list are no longer functional and have been deprecated. For now on use model level configuration of visibility or for more granular control integrate an authorization framework as outlined later in this document.

The field configuration method partial has been deprecated in favor of action-specific methods (edit_partial, create_partial and update_partial). See the section titled Fields - Rendering above for more details.

Support

If you have a question, you can ask the official RailsAdmin mailing list or ping sferik on IRC in #railsadmin on irc.freenode.net.

If you think you found a bug in RailsAdmin, you can submit an issue.

Screenshots

Installation

In your Gemfile, add the following dependencies:

gem 'fastercsv' # Only required on Ruby 1.8 and below
gem 'devise' # Devise must be required before RailsAdmin
gem 'rails_admin', :git => 'git://github.com/sferik/rails_admin.git'

Run:

$ bundle install

And then run:

$ rake rails_admin:install

This task will install RailsAdmin and Devise if you don't already have it installed. Devise is strongly recommended to protect your data from anonymous users. It will also modify your config/routes.rb, adding:

mount RailsAdmin::Engine => '/admin', :as => 'rails_admin'

You are free to change /admin to any location you want.

If you plan to use Devise, but want to use a custom model for authentication (default is User) you can provide that as an argument for the installer. For example to override the default with a Member model run:

$ rake rails_admin:install model_name=member

Then update the current_user method in your config file:

RailsAdmin.config do |config|
  config.current_user_method do
    current_member
  end
end

To use the CKEditor with Upload function, add Rails-CKEditor to your Gemfile (gem 'ckeditor') and follow Rails-CKEditor installation instructions.

You can configure more options of CKEditor "config.js" file following the Api Documentation .

Usage

Start the server:

$ rails server

You should now be able to administer your site at http://localhost:3000/admin.

Configuration

RailsAdmin provides its out of the box administrative interface by inspecting your application's models and following some Rails conventions. For a more tailored experience, it also provides a configuration DSL which allows you to customize many aspects of the interface.

The configuration code should be placed in an initializer file, for example:

config/initializers/rails_admin.rb

RailsAdmin.config do |config|
  config.models do
    list do
      fields_of_type :datetime do
        date_format :compact
      end
    end
  end
end

General

You can customize authentication by providing a custom block for RailsAdmin.authenticate_with. To disable authentication, pass an empty block:

RailsAdmin.config do |config|
  config.authenticate_with {}
end

You can exclude models from RailsAdmin by appending those models to excluded_models:

RailsAdmin.config do |config|
  config.excluded_models << "ClassName"
end

You can display empty fields in show view with:

RailsAdmin.config do |config|
  config.compact_show_view = false
end

You can customize the width of the list view with:

RailsAdmin.config do |config|
  config.total_columns_width = 1000
end

If you don't want to reload RailsAdmin config at each requests in development mode (it can get very slow):

RailsAdmin.config do |config|
  config.reload_between_requests = false
end

Whitelist Approach

By default, RailsAdmin automatically discovers all the models in the system and adds them to its list of models to be accessible through RailsAdmin. The excluded_models configuration above permits the blacklisting of individual model classes.

If you prefer a whitelist approach, then you can use the included_models configuration option instead:

RailsAdmin.config do |config|
  config.included_models = ["Class1", "Class2", "Class3"]
end

Only the models explicitly listed will be put under RailsAdmin access, and the auto-discovery of models is skipped.

The blacklist is effective on top of that, still, so that if you also have:

RailsAdmin.config do |config|
  config.excluded_models = ["Class1"]
end

then only Class2 and Class3 would be made available to RailsAdmin.

The whitelist approach may be useful if RailsAdmin is used only for a part of the application and you want to make sure that new models are not automatically added to RailsAdmin, e.g. because of security concerns.

Model Class and Instance Labels

Setting the model's label

If you need to customize the label of the model, use:

RailsAdmin.config do |config|
  config.model Team do
    label "List of teams"
  end
end

This label will be used anywhere the model name is shown, e.g. on the navigation tabs, Dashboard page, list pages, etc.

The object_label_method method

The model configuration has another option object_label_method which configures the title display of a single database record, i.e. an instance of a model.

By default it tries to call "name" or "title" methods on the record in question. If the object responds to neither, then the label will be constructed from the model's classname appended with its database identifier. You can add label methods (or replace the default [:name, :title]) with:

RailsAdmin.config {|c| c.label_methods << :description}

This object_label_method value is used in a number of places in RailsAdmin--for instance for the output of belongs to associations in the listing views of related models, for the option labels of the relational fields' input widgets in the edit views of related models and for part of the audit information stored in the history records--so keep in mind that this configuration option has widespread effects.

RailsAdmin.config do |config|
  config.model Team do
    object_label_method do
      :custom_label_method
    end
  end

  def custom_label_method
    "Team #{self.name}"
  end
end

Difference between label and object_label

label and object_label are both model configuration options. label is used whenever Rails Admin refers to a model class, while object_label is used whenever Rails Admin refers to an instance of a model class (representing a single database record).

Navigation

• hiding a model
• setting the model's label
• configuring the number of visible tabs

Hiding a model

You can hide a model from the top navigation by marking its visible option as false:

By passing the value as an argument:

RailsAdmin.config do |config|
  config.model Team do
    visible false
  end
end

Or by passing a block that will be lazy evaluated each time the option is read:

RailsAdmin.config do |config|
  config.model Team do
    visible { false }
  end
end

These two examples also work as a generic example of how most of the configuration options function within RailsAdmin. You can pass a value as an argument option_name value, or you can pass in a block which will be evaluated each time the option is read. Notable is that boolean options' reader accessors will be appended with ? whereas the writers will not be. That is, if you want to get the Team model's visibility, you use RailsAdmin.config(Team).visible?.

Create a navigation_label in navigation

RailsAdmin.config do |config|
  config.model Team do
    parent League
  end

  config.model Team do
    parent League
  end
end

Obtained navigation:

Dashboard
...
League # (non-clickable)
  League
  Division
  Team
...

You probably want to change the name of the navigation_label. This can be easily achieved with the 'navigation_label' method of the parent model.

Added to previous example:

RailsAdmin.config do |config|
  config.model League do
    navigation_label 'League related'
  end
end

Obtained navigation:

Dashboard
...
League related  # (non-clickable)
  League
  Division
  Team
...

Change models order in navigation

By default, they are ordered by alphabetical order. If you need to override this, specify a weight attribute. Default is 0. Lower values will bubble items to the top, higher values will move them to the bottom. Items with same weight will still be ordered by alphabetical order. The mechanism is fully compatible with navigation labels. Items will be ordered within their own menu subset. (but parent will always be first inside his submenu).

Example:

RailsAdmin.config do |config|
  config.model League do
    navigation_label 'League related'
    weight -1
  end
end

The 'League related' navigation label will move to the topmost position.

List view

• Number of items per page
• Number of items per page per model
• Default sorting
  • Configure globally
  • Configure per model
• Fields
  • Visibility and ordering
  • Label
  • Output formatting
  • Sortability
  • Column CSS class
  • Column width

Number of items per page

You can configure the default number of rows rendered per page:

RailsAdmin.config do |config|
  config.default_items_per_page = 50
end

Number of items per page per model

You can also configure it per model:

RailsAdmin.config do |config|
  config.model Team do
    list do
      items_per_page 100
    end
  end
end

Default sorting

By default, rows sorted by the field id in reverse order

You can change default behavior with use two options: sort_by and sort_reverse?

Default sorting - Configure globally

RailsAdmin.config do |config|
  config.models do
    list do
      sort_by :updated_at
      sort_reverse true # already default for serials ids and dates
    end
  end
end

Default sorting - Configure per model

RailsAdmin.config do |config|
  config.model Player do
    list do
      sort_by :name
      sort_reverse false
    end
  end
end

Fields - Sortability

You can make a column non-sortable by setting the sortable option to false (1) You can change the column that the field will actually sort on (2) Belongs_to associations : will be sorted on their label if label is not virtual (:name, :title, etc.) otherwise on the foreign_key (:team_id) you can also specify a column on the targetted table (see example) (3)

RailsAdmin.config do |config|
  config.model Player do
    list do
      field :created_at do # (1)
        sortable false
      end
      field :name do # (2)
        sortable :last_name # imagine there is a :last_name column and that :name is virtual
      end
      field :team_id do # (3)
        # Will order by players playing with the best teams,
        # rather than the team name (by default),
        # or the team id (dull but default if object_label is not a column name)

        sortable :win_percentage

        # if you need to specify the join association name:
        # (See #526 and http://api.rubyonrails.org/classes/ActiveRecord/Associations/ClassMethods.html => table_aliasing)
        sortable {:teams => :win_percentage}
        # or
        sortable "teams.win_percentage"
      end
    end
  end
end

Default sort column is :id for ActiveRecord version To change it: RailsAdmin.config do |config| config.model Team do sort_by :name end end

By default, dates and serial ids are reversed when first-sorted ('desc' instead of 'asc' in SQL). If you want to reverse (or cancel it) the default sort order (first column click or the default sort column):

RailsAdmin.config do |config|
  config.model Team do
    list do
      field :id do
        sort_reverse? false   # will sort id increasing ('asc') first ones first (default is last ones first)
      end
      field :created_at do
        sort_reverse? false   # will sort dates increasing ('asc') first ones first (default is last ones first)
      end
      field :name do
        sort_reverse? true    # will sort name decreasing ('dec') z->a (default is a->z)
      end
    end
  end
end

Fields - Searchability

You can make a column non-searchable by setting the searchable option to false (1) You can change the column that the field will actually search on (2) You can specify a list of column that will be searched over (3) Belongs_to associations : will be searched on their foreign_key (:team_id) or on their label if label is not virtual (:name, :title, etc.) you can also specify columns on the targetted table or the source table (see example) (4)

RailsAdmin.config do |config|
  config.model Player do
    list do
      field :created_at do # (1)
        searchable false
      end

      field :name do (2)
        searchable :last_name
      end
      # OR
      field :name do (3)
        searchable [:first_name, :last_name]
      end

      field :team_id do # (4)
        searchable [:name, :id]
        # eq. to [Team => :name, Team => :id]
        # or even [:name, Player => :team_id] will search on teams.name and players.team_id

        # if you need to specify the join association name:
        # (See #526 and http://api.rubyonrails.org/classes/ActiveRecord/Associations/ClassMethods.html => table_aliasing)
        searchable [{:teams => :name}, {:teams => :id}]
        # or
        searchable ["teams.name", "teams.id"]
      end
    end
  end
end

Searchable definitions will be used for searches and filters. You can independently deactivate querying (search) or filtering for each field with:

field :team do
  searchable [:name, :color]
  queryable? true # default
  filterable? false
end

Empty filters can be displayed in the list view:

RailsAdmin.config do |config|
  config.model Team do
    list do
      filters [:name, :division]
    end
  end
end

Fields - Visibility and ordering

By default all fields are visible, but they are not presented in any particular order. If you specifically declare fields, only defined fields will be visible and they will be presented in the order defined:

RailsAdmin.config do |config|
  config.model Team do
    list do
      field :name
      field :created_at
    end
  end
end

This would show only "name" and "created at" columns in the list view.

If you need to hide fields based on some logic on runtime (for instance authorization to view field) you can pass a block for the visible option (including its hide and show accessors):

RailsAdmin.config do |config|
  config.model Team do
    list do
      field :name
      field :created_at
      field :revenue do
        visible do
          current_user.roles.include?(:accounting) # metacode
        end
      end
    end
  end
end

Note that above example's authorization conditional is not runnable code, just an imaginary example. You need to provide RailsAdmin with your own authorization scheme for which you can find a guide at the end of this file.

Fields - Label

The header of a list view column can be changed with the familiar label method:

RailsAdmin.config do |config|
  config.model Team do
    list do
      field :name do
        label "Title"
      end
      field :created_at do
        label "Created on"
      end
    end
  end
end

As in the previous example this would show only columns for fields "name" and "created at" and their headers would have been renamed to "Title" and "Created on".

Fields - Output formatting

The field's output can be modified:

RailsAdmin.config do |config|
  config.model Team do
    list do
      field :name do
        formatted_value do # used in form views
          value.to_s.upcase
        end

        pretty_value do # used in list view columns and show views, defaults to formatted_value for non-association fields
          value.titleize
        end

        export_value do
          value.camelize # used in exports, where no html/data is allowed
        end
      end
      field :created_at
    end
  end
end

This would render all the teams' names uppercased.

The field declarations also have access to a bindings hash which contains the current record instance in key :object and the view instance in key :view. Via :object we can access other columns' values and via :view we can access our application's view helpers:

RailsAdmin.config do |config|
  config.model Team do
    list do
      field :name do
        formatted_value do
          bindings[:view].tag(:img, { :src => bindings[:object].logo_url }) << value
        end
      end
      field :created_at
    end
  end
end

This would output the name column prepended with team's logo using the tag view helper. This example uses value method to access the name field's value, but that could be written more verbosely as bindings[:object].name.

Fields of different date types (date, datetime, time, timestamp) have two extra options to set the time formatting:

RailsAdmin.config do |config|
  config.model Team do
    list do
      field :name
      field :created_at do
        date_format :short
      end
      field :updated_at do
        strftime_format "%Y-%m-%d"
      end
    end
  end
end

This would render all the teams' "created at" dates in the short format of your application's locale and "updated at" dates in format YYYY-MM-DD. If both options are defined for a single field, strftime_format has precedence over date_format option. For more information about localizing Rails see Rails Internationalization API and Rails I18n repository.

Fields - Column CSS class

By default each column has a CSS class set according to field's data type. You can customize this by:

RailsAdmin.config do |config|
  config.model Team do
    list do
      field :name
      field :created_at do
        css_class "customClass"
      end
    end
  end
end

This would render the "created at" field's header and body columns with a CSS class named "customClass".

Fields - Column width

By default columns' widths are calculated from certain pre-defined, data-type-specific pixel values. If you want to ensure a minimum width for a column, you can:

RailsAdmin.config do |config|
  config.model Team do
    list do
      field :name do
        column_width 200
      end
      field :created_at
    end
  end
end

Create and update views

• Form rendering
• Field groupings
  • Visibility
  • Labels
  • Syntax
• Fields
  • Rendering
  • Overriding field type
  • Available field types
  • Creating a custom field type
  • Creating a custom field factory
  • Overriding field help texts
  • CKEditor integration

Form rendering

RailsAdmin renders these views with Rails' form builder (form_for). If you want to use a different form builder then provide an override for the edit view or independingly for the create and update views. The argument is a symbol or string that is sent to the view to process the form. This is handy for integrating things like the nested form builder (https://github.com/ryanb/nested_form) if you need to override a field's edit template.

RailsAdmin.config do |config|
  config.model Team do
    edit do
      form_builder :nested_form_for
      field :name
    end
  end
end

or independently

RailsAdmin.config do |config|
  config.model Team do
    create do
      form_builder :create_form_for
      field :name
    end
    update do
      form_builder :update_form_for
      field :name
    end
  end
end

Field groupings

By default RailsAdmin groups fields in the edit views (create and update views) by including all database columns and belongs to associations to "Basic info" group which is displayed on top of form. Below that are displayed all the other associations a model has, one group per association.

The configuration accessors are edit, create and update. First one is a batch accessor which configures both create and update views. For consistency, these examples only include the batch accessor edit, but if you need differing create and update views just replace edit with create or update.

Field groupings - visibility

Field groups can be hidden:

RailsAdmin.config do |config|
  config.model Team do
    edit do
      group :default do
        hide
      end
    end
  end
end

This would hide the "Basic info" group which is accessed by the symbol :default. Associations' groups can be accessed by the name of the association, such as :fans or :players. The hide method is just a shortcut for the actual visible option which was mentioned in the beginning of the navigation section.

Field groupings - labels

Field groups can be renamed:

RailsAdmin.config do |config|
  config.model Team do
    edit do
      group :default do
        label "Team information"
      end
    end
  end
end

This would render "Team information" instead of "Basic info" as the groups label.

Field groupings - help

Field groups can have a set of instructions which is displayed under the label:

RailsAdmin.config do |config|
  config.model Team do
    edit do
      group :default do
        label "Team information"
        help "Please fill all informations related to your team..."
      end
    end
  end
end

This content is mostly useful when the admin doign the data entry is not familiar with the system or as a way to display inline documentation.

Field groupings - syntax

As in the list view, the edit views' configuration blocks can directly contain field configurations, but in edit views those configurations can also be nested within group configurations. Below examples result an equal configuration:

RailsAdmin.config do |config|
  config.model Team do
    edit do
      group :default do
        label "Default group"
      end
      field :name do
        label "Title"
        group :default
      end
    end
  end
end

RailsAdmin.config do |config|
  config.model Team do
    edit do
      group :default do
        label "Default group"
        field :name do
          label "Title"
        end
      end
    end
  end
end

Important note on label - I18n

Use association name as translation key for label for association fields. If you have :user_id field with a user association, use :user as the attribute

In fact the first examples group :default configuration is unnecessary as the default group has already initialized all fields and belongs to associations for itself.

Fields

Just like in the list view, all fields are visible by default. If you specifically declare fields, only defined fields will be visible and they will be presented in the order defined. Thus both examples would render a form with only one group (labeled "Default group") that would contain only one element (labeled "Title").

In the list view label is the text displayed in the field's column header, but in the edit views label literally means the html label element associated with field's input element.

Naturally edit views' fields also have the visible option along with hide and show accessors as the list view has.

Fields - rendering

The edit view's fields are rendered using partials. Each field type has its own partial per default, but that can be overridden:

RailsAdmin.config do |config|
  config.model Team do
    edit do
      field :name do
        edit_partial "my_awesome_partial"
      end
    end
  end
end

There is a partial method for each action:

• edit
• create
• update

By default, create and update will render edit's partial.

The partial should be placed in your applications template folder, such as app/views/rails_admin/main/_my_awesome_partial.html.erb.

One can also completely override the rendering logic:

RailsAdmin.config do |config|
  config.model Team do
    edit do
      field :name do
        render do
          bindings[:view].render :partial => partial.to_s, :locals => {:field => self}
        end
      end
    end
  end
end

That example is just the default rendering method, but it shows you that you have access to the current template's scope with bindings[:view]. There's also bindings[:object] available, which is the database record being edited. Bindings concept was introduced earlier in this document and the functionality is the same.

Other example of completely override rendering logic is:

RailsAdmin.config do |config|
  edit do
    field :published do
      label "Published question?"
      render do
        bindings[:view].render :partial => "yes_no", :locals => {:field => self, :form => bindings[:form], :fieldset => bindings[:fieldset]}
      end
    end
  end
end

In app/views/rails_admin/main/_yes_no.html.erb

<div class="field <%= field.dom_id %>">
  <%= form.label field.method_name, field.label %>
  <%= form.send :radio_button, field.name, "Y" %>

  <%= %Q(Yes #{image_tag "yes.png", :alt => "Yes"} &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp).html_safe %>

  <%= form.send :radio_button, field.name, "N" %>

  <%= %Q(No #{image_tag "no.png", :alt => "No"}).html_safe %>

  <% if field.has_errors? %>
    <span class="errorMessage"><%= "#{field.label } #{field.errors.first}" %></span>
  <% end %>
  <p class="help"><%= field.help %></p>
</div>

In this dirty example above, all objects can be manipulated by the developer.

You can flag a field as read only, and if necessary fine-tune the output with pretty_value:

RailsAdmin.config do |config|
  edit do
    field :published do
      read_only true
      pretty_value do
        bindings[:object].published? ? 'Yes, it's live!' : 'No, in the loop...'
      end
    end
  end
end

Fields - overriding field type

If you'd like to override the type of the field that gets instantiated, the field method provides second parameter which is field type as a symbol. For instance, if we have a column that's a text column in the database, but we'd like to have it as a string type we could accomplish that like this:

RailsAdmin.config do |config|
  config.model Team do
    edit do
      field :description, :string do
         # configuration here
      end
    end
  end
end

If no configuration needs to take place the configuration block could have been left out:

RailsAdmin.config do |config|
  config.model Team do
    edit do
      field :description, :string
    end
  end
end

A word of warning, if you make field declarations for the same field a number of times with a type defining second argument in place, the type definition will ditch the old field configuration and load a new field instance in place.

Fields - Available field types

RailsAdmin ships with the following field types:

• belongs_to_association
• boolean
• date
• datetime
• decimal
• file_upload (does not initialize automatically)
• paperclip_file (initializes automatically if Paperclip is present)
• float
• has_and_belongs_to_many_association
• has_many_association
• has_one_association
• integer
• password (initializes if string type column's name is password)
• string
• enum
• text
• time
• timestamp
• virtual (useful for displaying data that is calculated a runtime [for example a method call on model instance])

Fields - Creating a custom field type

If you have a reusable field you can define a custom class extending RailsAdmin::Config::Fields::Base and register it for RailsAdmin:

RailsAdmin::Config::Fields::Types::register(:my_awesome_type, MyAwesomeFieldClass)

Then you can use your custom class in a field:

RailsAdmin.config do |config|
  config.model Team do
    edit do
      field :name, :my_awesome_type do
         # configuration here
      end
    end
  end
end

Fields - Creating a custom field factory

Type guessing can be overridden by registering a custom field "factory", but for now you need to study lib/rails_admin/config/fields/factories/* for examples if you want to use that mechanism.

Fields - Overriding field help texts

Every field is accompanied by a hint/text help based on model's validations. Everything can be overridden with help:

RailsAdmin.config do |config|
  config.model Team do
    edit do
      field :name
      field :email do
        help 'Required - popular webmail addresses not allowed'
      end
    end
  end
end

Fields - Paperclip

class Team < ActiveRecord::Base
  has_attached_file :image, :styles => { :medium => "300x300>", :thumb => "100x100>" }

  # handling delete in your model, if needed. Replace all image occurences with your asset name.
  attr_accessor :delete_image
  before_save { self.image = nil if self.delete_image == '1' }
end


RailsAdmin.config do |config|
  config.model Team do
    edit do
      field :image do
        thumb_method :thumb # for images. Will default to full size image, which might break the layout
        delete_method :delete_image # actually not needed in this case: default is "delete_#{field_name}" if the object responds to it
      end
    end
  end
end

Fields - Enum

Fields of datatype string, integer, text can be rendered with select boxes. Auto-detected if object responds to #{method_name}_enum. You can use enum_method to indicate the name of the enumeration method in your model. You can use enum to override any enum_method and give back a FormOptionsHelper#options_for_select collection.

class Team < ActiveRecord::Base
  def color_enum
    [['blue', 'red'], 'red']
    # should return any collection accepted by `FormOptionsHelper#options_for_select`
    # See http://api.rubyonrails.org/classes/ActionView/Helpers/FormOptionsHelper.html#method-i-options_for_select
  end
end

RailsAdmin.config do |config|
  config.model Team do
    edit do
      field :color
      # defaults to
      # field :color, :enum do
      #   enum_method do
      #     :color_enum
      #   end
      # end
    end
  end
end

If you don't have any enumeration method in your model, this will work:

RailsAdmin.config do |config|
  config.model Team do
    edit do
      field :color, :enum do
        enum do
          ['green', 'white']
        end
      end
    end
  end
end

Fields - CKEditor integration

CKEditor can be enabled on fields of type text:

RailsAdmin.config do |config|
  config.model Team do
    edit do
      field :description, :text do
        ckeditor true
      end
    end
  end
end

Fields - Ordered has_many/has_and_belongs_to_many/has_many :through associations

Orderable can be enabled on filtering multiselect fields (has_many, has_many :through & has_and_belongs_to_many associations), allowing selected options to be moved up/down. RailsAdmin will handle ordering in and out of the form.

RailsAdmin.config do |config|
  config.model Player do
    edit do
      field :fans do
        orderable true
      end
    end
  end
end

You'll need to handle ordering in your model with a position column for example.

** Associations - trivia **

You can edit related objects in filtering-multiselect by double-clicking on any visible item in the widget.

If you set the :inverse_of option on your relations, RailsAdmin will automatically populate the inverse relationship in the modal creation window. (link next to belongs_to and has_many widgets)

:readonly options are automatically inferred on associations fields and won't be editable in forms.

Configuring fields

• exclude_fields field_list
• exclude_fields_if cond
• include_fields field_list
• include_fields_if cond
• include_all_fields
• fields field_list, configuration_block

** Fields - exclude some fields **

By default all fields found on your model will be added to list/edit/export views, with a few exceptions for polymorphic columns and such. You can exclude specific fields with exclude_fields & exclude_fields_if:

Example:

RailsAdmin.config do |config|
  config.model League do
    list do
      exclude_fields_if do
        type == :datetime
      end

      exclude_fields :id, :name
    end
  end
end

But after you specify your first field, this behaviour will be canceled. Only the specified fields will be added. But you can then use include_all_fields to add all default fields:

Example:

RailsAdmin.config do |config|
  config.model League do
    list do
      field :name do
        # snipped specific configuration for name attribute
      end

      include_all_fields # all other default fields will be added after, conveniently
      exclude_fields :created_at # but you still can remove fields
    end
  end
end

** Fields - include some fields **

It is also possible to add fields by group and configure them by group:

Example:

RailsAdmin.config do |config|
  config.model League do
    list do
      # all selected fields will be added, but you can't configure them.
      # If you need to select them by type, see *fields_of_type*
      include_fields_if do
        name =~ /displayed/
      end

      include_fields :name, :title                # simply adding fields by their names (order will be maintained)
      fields :created_at, :updated_at do          # adding and configuring
        label do
          "#{label} (timestamp)"
        end
      end
    end
  end
end

Note that some fields are hidden by default (associations) and that you can display them to the list view by manually setting them to visible:

RailsAdmin.config do |config|
  config.model League do
    list do
      field :teams do
        visible true
      end
    end
  end
end

Mass Assignment Operations

• Mass assign for every model configuration
• Mass assign for every section (create, list, navigation and update)
• Mass assign by field type

Mass assign for every model configuration

Mass assignment operations are used to pass in configuration blocks for multiple targets at once. For instance, the code below configures every models' every field with an uppercased label in the list view.

RailsAdmin.config do |config|
  config.models do
    list do
      fields do
        label do
          label.upcase # in this context label refers to default label method
        end
      end
    end
  end
end

Mass assign for every section (create, list, navigation and update)

If one would like to assign that same behavior for all the different views in RailsAdmin (create, list, navigation and update) one could pass the label definition one level higher:

RailsAdmin.config do |config|
  config.models do
    fields do
      label do
        label.upcase
      end
    end
  end
end

As the navigation section does not define the fields method this configuration is only effective for create, list and update views.

Naturally this also works for a single model configuration:

RailsAdmin.config do |config|
  config.model Team do
    fields do
      label do
        label.upcase
      end
    end
  end
end

Mass assign by field type

One can also assign configurations for all fields by type. For instance modifying the date presentation of all datetime fields in all sections can be accomplished like this:

RailsAdmin.config do |config|
  config.models do
    fields_of_type :datetime do
      strftime_format "%Y-%m-%d"
    end
  end
end

Or even scope it like this:

RailsAdmin.config do |config|
  config.models do
    list do
      fields_of_type :datetime do
        date_format :compact
      end
    end
  end
end

Authorization

:attr_accessible and :attr_blacklisted are taken into account: restricted fields are not editable (read_only). If you whitelist attributes, don't forget to whitelist accessible associations' 'id' methods as well : division_id, player_ids, commentable_type, commentable_id, etc. :attr_accessible specifies a list of accessible methods for mass-assignment in your ActiveModel models. By default, RailsAdmin uses role :default (default in ActiveModel). If the role you specify isn't used in your whitelist declarations, you'll free access to all attributes. Keep in mind that 'key' != :key You can change role with a block evaluated in the context of the controller (you'll have access to view and _current_user) :

RailsAdmin.config do |config|
  config.attr_accessible_role do
    _current_user.roles.first
  end
end

If you don't want read_only fields to be visible in your forms:

RailsAdmin.config do |c|
  c.reload_between_requests = false # strongly advised, since mass-assignement slows things down a lot.
  c.models do
    edit do
      fields do
        visible do
          visible && !read_only
        end
      end
    end
  end
end

Authorization can be added using the authorize_with method. If you pass a block it will be triggered through a before filter on every action in Rails Admin.

RailsAdmin.config do |config|
  config.authorize_with do
    redirect_to root_path unless warden.user.is_admin?
  end
end

To use an authorization adapter, pass the name of the adapter. For example, to use with CanCan, pass it like this.

RailsAdmin.config do |config|
  config.authorize_with :cancan
end

See the wiki for more on authorization.

Contributing

In the spirit of free software, everyone is encouraged to help improve this project.

Here are some ways you can contribute:

• by using alpha, beta, and prerelease versions
• by reporting bugs
• by suggesting new features
• by translating to a new language
• by writing or editing documentation
• by writing specifications
• by writing code (no patch is too small: fix typos, add comments, clean up inconsistent whitespace)
• by refactoring code
• by resolving issues
• by reviewing patches
• financially

Submitting an Issue

We use the GitHub issue tracker to track bugs and features. Before submitting a bug report or feature request, check to make sure it hasn't already been submitted. You can indicate support for an existing issue by voting it up. When submitting a bug report, please include a Gist that includes a stack trace and any details that may be necessary to reproduce the bug, including your gem version, Ruby version, and operating system. Ideally, a bug report should include a pull request with failing specs.

Submitting a Pull Request

1. Fork the project.
2. Create a topic branch.
3. Implement your feature or bug fix. NOTE - there's a small test app located in the spec/dummy_app directory that you can use to experiment with rails_admin.
4. Add documentation for your feature or bug fix.
5. Run bundle exec rake doc:yard. If your changes are not 100% documented, go back to step 4.
6. Add specs for your feature or bug fix.
7. Run bundle exec rake spec. If your changes are not 100% covered, go back to step 6.
8. Commit and push your changes.
9. Submit a pull request. Please do not include changes to the gemspec, version, or history file. (If you want to create your own version for some reason, please do so in a separate commit.)

Supported Rubies

This library aims to support and is tested against the following Ruby implementations:

• Ruby 1.8.7
• Ruby 1.9.2
• Rubinius
• Ruby Enterprise Edition