Chapter 9. File uploading

In chapter 9, you learned how to restrict access to specific actions in your application, such as viewing projects and creating tickets, by defining a Permission model that keeps track of which users have access to which actions.

Ticketee’s getting pretty useful now. This chapter focuses on file uploading, the next logical step in a ticket-tracking application. Sometimes, when people file a ticket on an application such as Ticketee, they want to attach a file to provide more information for that ticket, because words alone can only describe so much. For example, a ticket description saying, “This button should move up a bit,” could be better explained with a picture showing where the button is now and where it should be. Users may want to attach any kind of file: a picture, a crash log, a text file, you name it. Currently, Ticketee has no way to attach files to the ticket: people would have to upload them elsewhere and then include a link with their ticket description.

By providing Ticketee the functionality to attach files to the ticket, you provide the project owners a useful context that will help them more easily understand what the ticket creator means. Luckily, there’s a gem called Paperclip that allows you to implement this feature easily.

9.1. Attaching a file

9.2. Attaching many files

9.3. Serving files through a controller

9.4. Using JavaScript

9.5. Summary