Feedable

Generate an activity feed from several ActiveRecord models, without the need for extra activity tables!

I always find myself creating "activity" tables to log recently created objects (from multiple tables), so I can display them in a feed somewhere. This gem removes the need for the extra table/hooks, so you can build rails apps even faster!

Requirements

Ruby and ActiveRecord

Requires Ruby version >= 1.9.2 and ActiveRecord version >= 3.0

Installation

Feedable should be installed as a gem in your app.

Include the gem in your Gemfile:

gem "feedable"

Or, if you like to live on the bleeding-edge:

gem "feedable", :git => "https://github.com/cavis/feedable"

Getting Started

In your models, indicate a datetime column to sort by:

class Alligator < ActiveRecord::Base
  feedable :created_at
end

class Grizzly < ActiveRecord::Base
  feedable :last_fed_at
end

Usage

In your controller, or wherever you want to sort these records:

def activity
  @recent_activity = feedable Alligator, Grizzly, :limit => 10
end

This will return an array of ActiveRecords, ordered by the specified datetime columns. The most recent activity will be first, with a limit of 10. Keep reading... the advanced options will explain more about this.

Advanced Options

Ah, you made it. Welcome!

When calling feedable, the first thing to pass is 1-or-more ActiveRecord queries. Just make sure you don't pass in something like Alligator.all, as this executes sql right away, and doesn't give feedable a chance to interject ordering.

However, you can pass in some fancy shmancy ActiveRecord conditions, includes, selects, and joins.

@recent = feedable Alligator.where('name = ?', 'charles').includes(:garden),
  Grizzly.select('name', 'height'),
  Walleye.joins(:guns).where('guns.type = "smart"'),
  :limit => 10

Note that if you don't pass a limit, you get the default limit of 100 things returned. Additionally, you can specify an offset to feedable:

@recent = feedable Alligator, Grizzly, :limit => 10, :offset => 20

Finally, even though you usually want activity in a descending datetime order, you can also flip that around:

@recent = feedable Alligator, Grizzly, :limit => 10, :order => 'desc'
@oldest = feedable Alligator, Grizzly, :limit => 10, :order => 'asc'

Issues and Contributing

Please, let me know about any bugs/feature-requests via the issues tracker. And if you'd like to contribute, send me a note! Thanks.

License

Feedable is free software, and may be redistributed under the MIT-LICENSE.

Thanks for listening!