Question

I’m giving users the ability to view a preview of a public page, even if they’re not logged in. The public page has a login link, and after a user is redirected to the login page and has logged in, they’re redirected back to the stored public_page.

What I’m looking for is a way to call the clear_location method when a user navigates away from the public_page they’re previewing without logging in. Right now, if a user visits a preview page and then goes back to my homepage and logs in from there, they’re directed back to the preview page they were looking at.

def page_public
  store_location
end

def store_location
  session[:current_location] = request.fullpath
end  

def clear_location
  session[:current_location] = nil
end

Answer 1

Sounds as though you just want to call clear_location on visiting any page that isn’t the login page.
Assuming that’s correct, you probably want a before_filter in your ApplicationController, which you would skip for the actions involved in logging in. Perhaps something like this:

class ApplicationController < ActionController::Base
  before_filter :clear_location

  ...

  def clear_location
    session[:current_location] = nil
  end
end

class LoginController < ApplicationController
  skip_before_filter :clear_location, :only => [:login]

  ...
end

Of course, I have no idea what controller handles your login, or exactly which actions are involved, but something along these lines should get the job done.