Nested resources: controllers and form input names

Let’s say I have a model class like this

class Parent < ActiveRecord::Base
has_many :things
has_one :special_thing, :classname => ‘Thing’, …
end

and I want the associations to be handled by UserThingsController and
UserSpecialThingsController respectively. Theny, apparently, I have to
set up routes with explicit :controllers

map.resources :parents do parent|
parent.resources :things, :controller => :user_things
parent.resource :special_thing, :controller => :user_special_things
end

Or is there a way to get this automatically?

As I want to edit the nested resources in-place on the same page as
their parent object, I have a view, that contains a forms like these

<% form_for(@special_thing, :url => image_path) do |f| %>
<%= f.text_field :name %>

<% form_for(@things[0], :url => image_path) do |f| %>
<%= f.text_field :name %>

The first thing to notice is that I have to give the :url argument, for
otherwise both forms would go to ThingsController instead of
the “nested” controllers.

Second, the element ids and names are unusable. What I get is

Whereas what I need is, for the has_one case,

and for the has_many case with the appropriate object ids used in
names/ids.

I just can’t get this stuff to do (easily) what I think it ought to do.
That may well be an indication that I’m misunderstanding something
considerably. What’s the right way?

Michael


Michael S.
mailto:[email protected]
http://www.schuerig.de/michael/