Was running through this tutorial, and ran into a few problems. I got an error message when trying to use script/generate scaffold_resource. That it could not find that generate script. I also had several errors on the page after I tried to make a new album via http://localhost:3000/albums/new.

I also met this problem with this tutorial, should be update to latest ..

for the rails 2.3.5( which I am using) , it changed back to ./script/general scaffold , not scaffold_resource any more.

and for the nested path, it should be like edit_artist_album_path(params[:artist_id], album), not edit_album_path(params[:artist_id], album).

def find_artist
  @artist = Artist.find(params[:artist_id)
end

and you can do the find_artist in a before_filter!

would you put find_artist in the album controller ?

  def test_should_get_index
    get :index
    assert_response :success
    assert assigns(:albums)
  end

hey, how would i get my /albums route back if i wanted a list of all the albums?

ah, then i'd have to fix the view to not ask for the artist... can of worms

test_should_get_index(AlbumControllerTest):
ActionController::RoutingError: No route matches {:action=>"index", :controller=>"albums"}

OK thanks getting somewhere now... but strangely (I'm VERY new to rails and ruby) I can't seem to set an instance variable in the create action, and view it in the new action template. . If I set the instance variable in the new action, the template gets it. How can I set the error for a login (session resource) in the create action, render the new action, and then have the new action template display the error message? The session is not an activerecord model. (but a resource).

Hmm, I'm not sure what the problem is, the template should have access to any instance variables defined in the action. For example:

# controller
def new
  @foo = 'bar'
end
def create
  @foo = 'blah'
  render :action => 'new'
end
# in new.rhtml
<%= @foo %>

- matt

Another questions here... I've noticed that when you go to a resource/new location... and then post with errors, the errors are missing... because the for actually does a redirect to "create". How do we handle errors from here??  Not sessions?

It is common to just render the "new" template instead of redirecting, this way the instance variable containing the validation errors is not lost. You could also use sessions, but this is easier.

def create
  @album = Album.new(params[:album])
  if @album.save
    flash[:notice] = "Successfully saved album!"
    redirect_to :action => 'index'
  else
    render :action => 'new' # render here, not redirect
  end
end

# new.rhtml
<%= error_messages_for :album %>

Try placing it above the other map.connect/map.resource definitions in the routes.rb file. When building the URL, the first possible route that passes the conditions is used.

If you create a named resource route... and you want to redirect to the named route instead of the action name... how is that done?

I've assigned "/login" to the restful_authentication plug-in 'sessions/new' url. But when there is an error, it brings me back to '/sessions' url (it's using redirect_back_or_default).

I just don't want to hard code: "redirect_back_or_default '/login'" into my controller, when that "/Login" reference is being created in routes.rb. Do you know what I mean? Or is that just the way it has to work?

- matt

Another questions here... I've noticed that when you go to a resource/new location... and then post with errors, the errors are missing... because the for actually does a redirect to "create". How do we handle errors from here??  Not sessions?

Thanks again!

- matt

p.s. I just bought the peep code video and it's really great!.

Good question. Normally in a RESTful design, there is no special administration section. Instead, user authentication is added and used to determine if a given user is an admin. If he is, he receives special privileges (access to certain actions). You can use simple if conditions in the view to show certain links for the admins. You can then use a before_filter to determine the user going to the given action has the proper access.

For example, if you create an Albums controller and you only want users to access the list/show actions, you can add a before_filter to the create/update/destroy actions to make sure the logged in user is an administrator. If you want a special layout for the admins, you can do this too by passing a symbol to the layout method so it calls another method to determine the layout (see the example in the link).

Another good question. The only benefit I see is the "/products/32/orders" url where this will show all orders for the given product. Once you get to specifying two ids it gets a little ridiculous IMO. I'm honestly not a fan of nested resources and prefer to just stick with the simple URLs, but other people like them and that's fine with me.

What is the best way to create a "Administrative" area for your site?? I can't figure this one out. Does it mean I have to put code in every controller just to get an admin layout and views? How do you specify that in the url; the "admin/" part?

What's the point of having a url like /products/32/orders/122? Isn't that a little confusing and this be better: /orders/122? Nested resources don't make sense to me. I can understand using the list view, to show only the related children, but to create, edit or delete seems strange.

@albums = Album.find(:all)
    Replaced with:
@albums = Artist.find(params[:artist_id]).albums

When add New Album or Edit existing Album show Error on URL putting :id instead of :artist_id.
Generate Error
ActiveRecord::RecordNotFound in AlbumsController#index
Couldn't find Artist with ID=9
The URL Looks Like:
http://192.168.1.36:3000/artists/9/albums
Instead of:
http://192.168.1.36:3000/artists/4/albums [ To show the List of Albums] or
http://192.168.1.36:3000/artists/4/albums/9 [ To display the currently added/edited album ]

On Click Show session dump:
---
flash: !map:ActionController::Flash::FlashHash
  :notice: Album was successfully created.

I can tell the new Album or the Edit Album successfully update the DB.
This makes me wonder where after the flash[:notice] my application is being redirected to the wrong URL ???

I wonder if @album = Album.new(params[:id]) need to be changed to something else !!!

I should said great Post, really enjoy it and follow up to understand better Restful Applications with Ruby, however this last step still makes me have a hard time, try to edit edit.rhtml, new.rhtml and show.rhtml but seems to mix the artist_id with the regular id.

Once I create a new album the insert put the record into the DB but the show seems to have confusion in the URL put the :id of the Album instead of the :artist_id

Best Regards Dino.