nested new forms about ancestry

[gshen]

We also have the same problem which make saving nested new forms impossible, it would be super nice if this can be addressed in the near future.

[yxhuvud]

That can be worked around by making a custom save method that validates all children first and then saves them from the root down. This is pretty simple to do.

A bigger problem is that there is nothing that simulates the ability of accepts_nested_attributes_for - there are neither a children= or children_attributes-method. This end up being pretty icky pretty fast, especially in the case of STI.

[gamov]

I've migrated to ancestry... to run in this issue :(
Reverted back to acts_as_tree.

[tommyalvarez]

+1

[kbrock]

The children reference the parent id
But it would seem something as common as belongs_to would implement something similar.

anyone have ideas how acts_as_tree or other plugins implement this?

[marcosg]

This is still relevant today for nested forms and speeding up the creation of seed files using parent.children.build.

[mkralik]

As a workaround I use custom validate method to validate children attributes and after_create hook to create children. And by implementing active model serializer I return parent with its children and it works fine. It is not super nice solution, but I think it could work for some use cases.

Example, I have a field and children are options for the field. I use STI FieldComponent as parent which implements has_ancestry and FieldInput and FieldOption as abstract models.

Field Model

attr_accessor :options

validate :options_attributes, if: -> field { field.option_field? && field.options != nil }
after_create :create_options, if: -> field { field.option_field? && field.options != nil }

def create_options
  options.each do |option|
    FieldOption.create(option.merge({ parent: self }))
  end
end

def options_attributes
  options.each do |option|
    field_option = FieldOption.new(option)
    if(!field_option.valid?)
      errors.add(:options, field_option.errors )
    end
  end
end

Field Controller

def create
   @field_input =  FieldInput.new(field_input_params)

   if @field_input.save
      render json: @field_input, status: :created, root: 'data'
   else
      render json: @field_input.errors, status: :unprocessable_entity
   end
end

def field_input_params
   params.require(:field).permit(:cf_type, :title, :key, :description, :required, :rank, :hidden, :active, options: [ :id, :key, :title, :rank, :active ])
end

Field Serializer

class Api::V1::Admin::FieldInputSerializer < ActiveModel::Serializer
  attributes :id, :cf_type, :title, :key, :description, :required, :active, :custom, :hidden, :rank, :fieldable_type, :options

  def options
    ActiveModelSerializers::SerializableResource.new(object.children, { adapter: :attributes, namespace:  Api::V1::Admin }).as_json
  end
end

Option Serializer

class Api::V1::Admin::FieldOptionSerializer < ActiveModel::Serializer
  attributes :id, :title, :key, :description, :active, :rank, :children

  def children
    ActiveModelSerializers::SerializableResource.new(object.children, { adapter: :attributes, namespace:  Api::V1::Admin }).as_json
  end
end

[kbrock]

thank you for sharing. would love it if someone introduced a way to modify the core so this work around is not necessary.

[spacerobotTR]

Any updates to this? I just started using this with Administrate. It works great for exisiting records, but when I tried to create a new one I got this error:

No child ancestry for new record. Save record before performing tree operations.

Any up to date work arounds for this?