Question

Users have many websites, and Websites have many Keywords. (Keywords being nested resources of the Websites resource)

Right now, with the default scaffolding setup, it’s very tedious to add many keywords at once. I’d like a text area instead of a text field that allows users to type many keywords, each on their own line, and submit them all at once. The only input on the form is for the keyword’s “text” column.

How can I do this?

I can figure out things like params[:keyword][:text].split("\r\n").each do |text|, but I’m not sure how to interact it with the Rails form.

<%= form_for [@website, @keyword] do |f| %>
  <% if @keyword.errors.any? %>
    <div id="error_explanation">
      <h2><%= pluralize(@keyword.errors.count, "error") %> prohibited this keyword from being saved:</h2>

      <ul>
      <% @keyword.errors.full_messages.each do |msg| %>
        <li><%= msg %></li>
      <% end %>
      </ul>
    </div>
  <% end %>

  <div class="field">
    <%= f.label :text %><br />
    <%= f.text_area :text %>
  </div>

  <div class="actions">
    <%= f.submit %>
  </div>
<% end %>

Answer 1

(Note: I originally stuck this on the original post as an edit, so I’ve instead copy and pasted it so it’s the best answer)

Here’s what I ended up doing in the meanwhile. It’s sloppy (I’m a Ruby noob), but it saves the keywords that are valid and renders back “new” with a list of the failed keywords:

# keywords_controller
def create
    invalid_keywords = []
    valid_keywords = []
    params[:keyword][:text].split("\r\n").map(&:strip).delete_if {|text| text == ""}.each do |text|
      keyword = @website.keywords.new(:text => text.downcase)
      if keyword.save
        valid_keywords << keyword
      else
        invalid_keywords << keyword
      end
    end

    if invalid_keywords.empty? # All keywords saved
      redirect_to @website, :notice => "Keyword(s) added"
    else # These keywords didn't save
      @keyword = @website.keywords.new(:text => invalid_keywords.map(&:text).join("\r\n"))
      @errors = invalid_keywords.first.errors
      flash[:success] = "#{valid_keywords.count} keywords were saved"
      flash[:alert] = "#{invalid_keywords.count} keywords did not save (shown below)"
      render :action => "new"
    end
end