A gem to track any activity in your application and record it to the database.

Gem Source Code

Example:

public activity list of activities

basic setup #

Gemfile

gem 'public_activity'

console

rails g public_activity:migration
rake db:migrate

app/models/post.rb

  include PublicActivity::Model
  tracked

see if it works #

console

PublicActivity::Activity.count
# => 0

p = Post.create(title: 'first post')

PublicActivity::Activity.count
# => 1

p.destroy!

PublicActivity::Activity.count
# => 2

track current_user in activities #

app/controllers/application_controller.rb

  include PublicActivity::StoreController

app/models/post.rb

  include PublicActivity::Model
  tracked owner: proc { |controller, model| controller.current_user }
  # tracked owner: Proc.new{ |controller, model| controller.current_user }

track activities for the user model #

app/models/user.rb

  include PublicActivity::Model
  tracked owner: :itself

track only particular activities #

app/models/user.rb

  include PublicActivity::Model
  tracked only: [:create, :destroy]

enable / disable activities (for example in console or seeds.rb) # 

# Disable globally
PublicActivity.enabled = false

# Perform some operations that would normally be tracked by p_a:
Article.create(title: 'New article')

# Switch it back on
PublicActivity.enabled = true

# Disable p_a for Article class
Article.public_activity_off

# p_a will not do anything here:
@article = Article.create(title: 'New article')

# But will be enabled for other classes:
# (creation of the comment will be recorded if you are tracking the Comment class)
@article.comments.create(body: 'some comment!') 

# Enable it again for Article:
Article.public_activity_on

get all activities for a particular object (a post) #

controllers/posts_controller.rb

  def show
    @post = Post.find(params[:id])
    @activities = PublicActivity::Activity
      .where(trackable_type: "Post", trackable_id: @post)
      .order(created_at: :desc)
  end

activities as relationships, dependent destroy activities #

app/models/post.rb

  include PublicActivity::Model
  tracked owner: proc { |controller, model| controller.current_user }
  has_many :activities, as: :trackable, class_name: 'PublicActivity::Activity', dependent: :destroy

save custom activity (example - in a controller action) # 

  @post.create_activity :change_status, parameters: {status: @post.status}

  # or
  @post.create_activity action: 'poke', params: {reason: 'bored'}, recipient: @friend, owner: @user

view to display all activities #

any controller

  def activity
    @activities = PublicActivity::Activity.order(created_at: :desc)
  end

###

activity.html.haml

- @activities.each do |activity|
  = activity.created_at
  = time_ago_in_words(activity.created_at)
  = activity.trackable_type
  = link_to activity.trackable, activity.trackable
  = activity.key
  = link_to activity.owner, user_path(activity.owner) if activity.owner.present?
  = activity.parameters