_readme.md

Saving ActiveAdmin filters between requests

This shows one technique for preserving filters on index pages for ActiveAdmin resources, without having to patch the ActiveAdmin core.

It restores any previously-used filters whenever the index page is rendered for a resource, unless the current request is an actual application of new filters. It also properly handles the clear-filters button (via a synchronous Ajax request that happens immediately before the normal filter form processing).

Yes, it's a bit of a hack, but it has worked well for me so far.

Usage

Place the controller.rb file in lib/active_admin/filter_saver/controller.rb, the index-filters.coffee somewhere that will be included into ActiveAdmin's JavaScripts. The active_admin.rb excerpt is from config/initializers/active_admin.rb.

active_admin.rb

ActiveAdmin.setup do |config|

  # .... [SNIP] ....

  # == Controller Filters

  # These two are defined in ActiveAdmin::FilterSaver::Controller, which is loaded below.
  config.before_filter :restore_search_filters
  config.after_filter :save_search_filters

  # .... [SNIP] ....

end

require 'active_admin/filter_saver/controller'

ActiveAdmin.before_load do |app|
  # Add our Extensions
  ActiveAdmin::BaseController.send :include, ActiveAdmin::FilterSaver::Controller
end

controller.rb

# -*- encoding : utf-8 -*-

module ActiveAdmin
  module FilterSaver

    # Extends the ActiveAdmin controller to persist resource index filters between requests.
    #
    # @author David Daniell / тιηуηυмвєяѕ <info@tinynumbers.com>
    module Controller

      private

      SAVED_FILTER_KEY = :last_search_filter

      def restore_search_filters
        filter_storage = session[SAVED_FILTER_KEY]
        if params[:clear_filters].present?
          params.delete :clear_filters
          if filter_storage
            logger.info "clearing filter storage for #{controller_key}"
            filter_storage.delete controller_key
          end
          if request.post?
            # we were requested via an ajax post from our custom JS
            # this render will abort the request, which is ok, since a GET request will immediately follow
            render json: { filters_cleared: true }
          end
        elsif filter_storage && (params[:action].to_sym == :index) && params[:q].blank? && (params[:commit] != 'Filter')
          saved_filters = filter_storage[controller_key]
          unless saved_filters.blank?
            params[:q] = saved_filters
          end
        end
      end

      def save_search_filters
        if params[:action].to_sym == :index
          session[SAVED_FILTER_KEY] ||= Hash.new
          session[SAVED_FILTER_KEY][controller_key] = params[:q]
        end
      end

      # Get a symbol for keying the current controller in the saved-filter session storage.
      def controller_key
        current_path = request.env['PATH_INFO']
        current_route = Rails.application.routes.recognize_path(current_path)
        current_route.sort.flatten.join('-').gsub(/\//, '_').to_sym
      end

    end

  end
end

index-filters.coffee

$ ->

  # Extend the clear-filters button to clear saved filters
  $('.clear_filters_btn').click (evt) ->
    # This will send a synchronous post with clear_filters set to true -
    # our AA FilterSaver controller extension looks for this parameter to
    # know when to clear session-stored filters for a resource - and then
    # the default AA clear-filters button behavior will issue a get request
    # to actually re-render the page.
    $.ajax this.href, {
      async: false,
      data: { clear_filters: true },
      type: 'POST'
    }