Question

So I’m working on a new rails project which involves running multiple website from a single rails installation. I am confuse on how to do the association without nesting the resources.

note: I am using subdomains so url would be site1.ex.com/photos,
site2.ex.com/ramps

For example now I have a site named site 1 and site 1 has photos, videos, and ramps. I can do the association by telling rails site has_many :photos, :videos, :ramps(Code is not formatted properly just giving you the idea). Everything works fine including url but here is my problem.

1. site is included in the url which is something I do not want(ex. example.com/sites/1/photos).
2. Association works fine but what if I would like to have parents for the 3 items? Rails suggests you do not nest routes over 1 level deep.
   

Here is what I would like to do

1. How can I called the association between site without using nested resources(Can’t capture the site_id with album_id for photos)?
2. If album has_many :photos and belongs_to :site how can I call that in my controller(Any examples)?

Am rails newb so I’ve added pictures so someone could understand what I am trying to accomplish.

Answer 1

If you use subdomains, you don’t have to use nested resources for sites. To find a site:

class ApplicationController < ActionController::Base

  before_filter :find_site_by_subdomain

  def find_site_by_subdomain
    @site = Site.find_by_subdomain!(request.subdomain)
  end

end

For all the other resources, you nest them not under Sitebut use themselves as the parent (Album/Photos, Videos, Ramps). And in your AlbumsController you will want only those that belong to the site with the current subdomain, so you make use of your before_filter from the ApplicationController and use the @site object:

class AlbumsController < ApplicationController

  …

  def show
    @album = @site.albums.find(params[:id])
  end

  …
end