Question

I need help on creating these cookies for my Search options. I’ve read the Rails Guide and API but still don’t understand how to make cookies correctly. I have two checkboxes that filter search results. They start out as already checked but what I need it to do is save the settings in a cookie if one of them is unchecked for the next searches. Here is a picture for better understanding:

---

Answer:

class SearchController < ApplicationController
  def index
    @title = "Search"
    @page_title = "Search"
    # Checkboxes are already checked.
    params[:online_search_checked] = true
    params[:offline_search_checked] = true
    restore_cookie # if user enters this page in the future we restore checkboxes state from the cookies. For the first visit checkbox value will be true.
  end

  def results
    update_cookie # each time user submits search we need to update cookies.
    restore_cookie # each time user submits search we need to show search page with correctly checked check boxes.
    @title = "Search"
    @page_title = "Search"
    @search = Product.search do |q|
      q.fulltext params[:search]
      q.with(:coordinates, params[:coordinates]).near(latitude, longitude, :precision => 3) if params[:coordinates].present?
      q.with(:online_search, false) if params[:online_search].nil? # search user prices that are online automatically if checkbox is checked.
      q.with(:offline_search, true) if params[:offline_search].nil? # search user prices that are offline automatically if checkbox is checked.
      q.paginate(:per_page => 20, :page => params[:page])
      q.order_by(:purchase_date, :desc)
      q.order_by(:price,:asc)
    end
    @products = @search.results
  end

  def update_cookie
    update_cookie_with_param(:online_search, :online_search_checked)
    update_cookie_with_param(:offline_search, :offline_search_checked)
  end

  def restore_cookie
    restore_param_from_cookie(:online_search_checked)
    restore_param_from_cookie(:offline_search_checked)
  end

  def update_cookie_with_param(value_param_name, checked_param_name)
    checked = params[value_param_name].nil? ? "false" : "true"
    cookies[checked_param_name] = { :value => checked, :expires => 2.weeks.from_now }
  end

  def restore_param_from_cookie(checked_param_name)
    if cookies[checked_param_name]
      params[checked_param_name] = (cookies[checked_param_name] == "true")
    end
  end
end

# On index and result page in partial
<%= form_tag results_search_index_path, :method => 'get' do %>
   <%= text_field_tag :search, params[:search] %>
   <%= submit_tag "Search", :name => nil %>
   <%= label_tag :online_search, 'Online' %>
    <%= check_box_tag :online_search, 'online_search_value', params[:online_search_checked] %>
    <%= label_tag :offline_search, 'Offline' %>
    <%= check_box_tag :offline_search, 'offline_search_value', params[:offline_search_checked] %>
<% end %>

---

Answer 1

Cookie is a message given to a Web browser by a Web server. The
browser stores the message in a text file. The message is then sent
back to the server each time the browser requests a page from the
server.

In rails you can use cookies, cookies.permanent and cookies.signed to write cookies:

• cookies – simple session cookies
• cookies.permanent – create cookies
  with expiration date 20 years in the future
• cookies.signed – generate
  signed representation of cookie to pvervent tampering of its value by
  the end user.

To explain cookies usage I created two session cookies for your application: ‘online_search_checked’ and ‘offline_search_checked’. They contain “true” or “false” values and represent whether appropriate checkbox is checked or not.

check_box_tag has following parameters: checkbox_name, checkbox_value, is_checked. We need to modify third parameter depending on the value received from the cookie. The second value may be a constant. If checkbox is checked, then params[:checkbox_name] == checkbox_value. If checkbox is unchecked, then params[:checkbox_name] == nil.

Here is the algorithm:

• The first time when user hits ‘search/index’ he does not have
  ‘online_search_checked’ and ‘offline_search_checked’ cookies set.
  Then you would like to show him both check boxes checked by default.
• If this is not the first time then user already has cookies set and
  we need to restore state of checkboxes from these cookies.
• When user hits ‘search/results’ we update cookies with the current state of checkboxes
  and restore state of checkboxes from these cookies.

Here is the code with my comments:

class SearchController < ApplicationController
  def index
    params[:online_search_checked] = true
    params[:offline_search_checked] = true
    restore_cookie # if user enters this page in the future we restore checkboxes state from the cookies. For the first visit checkbox value will be true.
  end

  def results
    update_cookie # each time user submits search we need to update cookies
    restore_cookie # each time user submits search we need to show search page with correctly checked check boxes

    # Using Sunspot here.
    @search = Product.search do |q|
      q.fulltext params[:search]
      q.with(:online_search, params[:online_search] == 1) if params[:online_search].nil?
      q.with(:offline_search, params[:offline_search] == 0) if params[:offline_search].nil?
    end

    @products = @search.results # Sunspot rendering results.
  end

  def update_cookie
    update_cookie_with_param(:online_search, :online_search_checked)
    update_cookie_with_param(:offline_search, :offline_search_checked)
  end

  def restore_cookie
    restore_param_from_cookie(:online_search_checked)
    restore_param_from_cookie(:offline_search_checked)
  end

  def update_cookie_with_param(value_param_name, checked_param_name)
    checked = params[value_param_name].nil? ? "false" : "true"
    cookies[checked_param_name] = { :value => checked, :expires => 2.weeks.from_now }
  end

  def restore_param_from_cookie(checked_param_name)
    if cookies[checked_param_name]
      params[checked_param_name] = (cookies[checked_param_name] == "true")
    end
  end
end

# On index and result page in partial
<%= form_tag 'results', :method => 'get' do %>
   <%= text_field_tag :search, params[:search] %>
   <%= submit_tag "Search", :name => nil %>
   <%= check_box_tag :online_search, 'online_search_value', params[:online_search_checked] %>
   <%= check_box_tag :offline_search, 'offline_search_value', params[:offline_search_checked] %>
<% end %>

Hope this helps!

---

UPDATE

I do not quite understood what do you want to do here:

q.with(:online_search, params[:online_search] == 1) if params[:online_search].nil?
q.with(:offline_search, params[:offline_search] == 0) if params[:offline_search].nil?

In your code params[:online_search] == 1 and params[:offline_search] == 0 expressions will always be false because params[:online_search] and params[:offline_search] are nil according to if condition.