Question

I wish to allow admins to create posts with custom fields, but still wish for them to use the same create action as normal users use.

I thought to do this:

class Ability
   include CanCan::Ability

   def initialize(user)
      if user.admin?
          can :specialize, Post
      end
   end
end

Then in my controller:

def create
    @post = Post.new
    if can? :specialize, @post
        do_fancy_things_here
    end
end

The weird thing is, do_fancy_things_here is ALWAYS running regardless of if the user is an admin or not.

This is strange. The only way I deviated from the cancan manuals is that :specialize does not actually map to a controller action. Does that matter?

Answer 1

Your have to use authorize! :specialize, @post in your controller.

https://github.com/ryanb/cancan/wiki/Authorizing-Controller-Actions