Question

So, I’m building an educational resource search engine Rails app. This app will display results (e.g. Calculus videos) in a block-type layout meant to leverage Isotope (for cool filtering/sorting transitions and the like).

In addition to querying our database for appropriate Resources, we are also querying Google via their Custom Search Engine API. On top of that, eventually we will want to place some ad blocks into the grid view.

So my question is, how can I combine the @resources returned from querying our database with the JSON results of the Google query and also eventually with ads? I want to do this to make the results view (search.html.erb) as clean as possible. Additionally, I want to be able to sort/filter all of the results. That is, I’d like to be able to merge the ActiveRecord results with the Google query results. This would also allow me to do things like:

(Boxx is the generic class I’m thinking of)

<% @boxxes.each do |boxx| %>
    <div class=<%= boxx.type %>>
       <h2><%= boxx.title %></h2>
       <h3><%= boxx.description %></h3>
       ...
       ...
       ...
    </div>
<% end %>

My Resource controller is below. Basically, I want to combine the @resource with the results of a Google query into one enumerable with a common interface and that I can sort according to the sort type specified by the user.

What is the best way to go about this? Should I create a Boxx class at the bottom of the controller and be able to initialize it with either a Resource, google JSON or Ad? Then I could keep a type variable and then be able to sort them all together?

Here’s my Resource controller

require 'will_paginate/array'

class ResourcesController < ApplicationController
  def index
      @resources = Resource.all
  end

  def create

    # Usability concern here... need to make sure that they are redirected back here once they log in or something
    if current_user == nil
      flash[:alert] = "You must log in to submit a resource!"
      redirect_to resources_path
      return
    else
      params[:resource][:user_id] = current_user.id
    end


    # Check to see if this resource unique
    params[:resource][:link] = Post::URI.clean(params[:resource][:link])
    if unique_link?(params[:resource][:link])
      @resource = Resource.new(params[:resource])
      @resource[:youtubeID] = self.isYoutube(@resource[:link])
      @resource.save
    else
      flash[:alert] = "This resource has already been added!"
    end
    redirect_to resources_path
  end

  def vote
    value = params[:type] == "up" ? 1 : -1
    @resource = Resource.find(params[:id])
    @resource.add_or_update_evaluation(:votes, value, current_user)
    respond_to do |format|  
        format.html { redirect_to :back, notice: "Thank you for voting" }  
        format.json { render :status=>200, :json=>{:success=>true}}  
    end
  end

  def isYoutube(youtube_url)
    regex = %r{http://www.youtube.com}
    if youtube_url[regex]
      youtube_url[/^.*((v\/)|(embed\/)|(watch\?))\??v?=?([^\&\?]*).*/]
      youtube_id = $5
      thumbnail_Link = "http://img.youtube.com/vi/#{youtube_id}/1.jpg"
    else
      thumbnail_Link = nil
    end
    thumbnail_Link
  end

  def unique_link?(url)
    Resource.find_by_link(url) == nil
  end

  def search
     @resource = Resource.full_search(params[:q])
   #  raise params.to_s
     @resource = @resource.reject!{|r| !r.media_type.eql? params[:filter][0][:media_type].downcase } if params[:filter] && !params[:filter][0][:media_type].blank?

     if params[:filter] 
      case params[:filter][0][:sort].downcase 
      when 'newest'
         then @resource = @resource.sort_by{|r| r.created_at}
      when 'votes'
         then @resource = @resource.sort_by!{|r| r.reputation_for(:votes).to_i}.reverse
      else
      end
     end

     @resource = @resource.paginate(:page => (params[:page] || 1), :per_page => 15)   
  end 


  def google(q, filter)
    # Authenticating into Google's API
    client = Google::APIClient.new(:key => 'secret', :authorization => nil)

    # Discover the Custom Search API
    search = client.discovered_api('customsearch')

    # Search Google CSE
    response = client.execute(
      :api_method => search.cse.list,
      :parameters => {
        'q' => "#{q} #{filter}",
        'key' => 'secret',
        'cx' => 'secret'
      }
    )

    # Decode the results
    results = ActiveSupport::JSON.decode(response.body, {:symbolize_names => true})

    # Return an empty array if Google CSE limit has been met.
    results["items"] == nil ? [] : results["items"]

  end

  def make_boxxes(resources, google_results, ads)

  end

end

EDIT #1: Wait, can just make a GoogleResult class, then do

@items = @resources | google_results

?

Because I could just make GoogleResult follow the same interface as Resources. But then how do I sort them? Hmmm…

Answer 1

I found what I needed by reading about “Designing Helpers in Ruby on Rails”

http://techspry.com/ruby_and_rails/designing-helpers-in-ruby-on-rails/