Most apps have an admin interface, a place where the developers and special users can make changes to the database.
Creating your own admin interface is time-consuming, and can take the focus away from developing user-facing features. Figuring that admin interfaces have similar needs, frameworks have emerged that help get your started.
With Rails Admin, you can edit your database on dev and production, in a user-friendly way, without coding your own admin interface.
Its closest competition is Active Admin, which I see as too complex for a convenience tool.
Quick start
Add this to your Gemfile:
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gem 'rails_admin' |
In a terminal window, while inside the path of your app, run
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rails g rails_admin:install |
You now have an admin panel, located at http://yourapp.com/admin
Two essential steps remain.
One, make sure your models are defined correctly. Have you defined associations, like belongs_to, has_one, and has_many, as needed?
Two, restrict access to your admin interface. tell Rails Admin who should be allowed access.
How it looks
My app will deliver online courses. So far, it contains two tables:
- Lessons
- Components
Each component falls under a lesson. In Rails-speak, a component :has_one lesson, and one lesson :has_many components.
Rails Admin looks at my models and shows them in its left navigation. I never had to separately tell Rails Admin the structure of my database.
When I click on a table, I see its records.
I can edit records. Since components are related to lessons, I can add components to lessons and associate each component to a lesson, all within Rails Admin.
Enjoy!
Rails Admin can help you launch faster by removing the need to develop your own custom admin interface.
At the start, either use a quick solution like Rails Admin or create your own custom admin interface. You can always move from Rails Admin to a custom interface later.
For more information about why you’d use Rails Admin, check out this presentation. Jump into the details by visiting the Rails Admin wiki.
Editor’s note
This is the beginning of a new series, Up and Running. We’ll tell you how to get up and running with several developer tools, quickly and easily. Get updates about what we cover next.
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