PaperTrailManager

Browse, view, and revert changes to records in Ruby on Rails applications using the paper_trail gem.

Requirements

• Ruby >= 3.1
• Rails >= 6.1, < 8.0
• PaperTrail >= 12.0
• A pagination library: will_paginate or Kaminari

Installation

Add to your Gemfile:

gem 'paper_trail_manager'

If you don't already use a pagination library, add one:

gem 'kaminari'
# or
gem 'will_paginate'

Install:

bundle install

Add the route to config/routes.rb:

resources :changes, controller: 'paper_trail_manager/changes'

Restart your server and visit /changes to browse, view, and revert your changes.

Configuration

Create an initializer (e.g. config/initializers/paper_trail_manager.rb) to customize behavior.

Authorization

Control when reverts are allowed:

PaperTrailManager.allow_revert_when do |controller, version|
  controller.current_user&.admin?
end

Whodunnit

Configure how to look up users referenced in PaperTrail's whodunnit column:

PaperTrailManager.whodunnit_class = User
PaperTrailManager.whodunnit_name_method = :nicename  # defaults to :name

Item Names

Specify a method to identify items on the index page:

PaperTrailManager.item_name_method = :nicename

User Links

Customize (or disable) the user path helper:

PaperTrailManager.user_path_method = :admin_path  # defaults to :user_path
PaperTrailManager.user_path_method = nil           # no user link

Engine Integration

When embedding PaperTrailManager inside another Rails engine:

PaperTrailManager.base_controller = "MyEngine::ApplicationController"
PaperTrailManager.route_helpers = MyEngine::Engine.routes.url_helpers
PaperTrailManager.layout = 'my_engine/application'

Development

Setup:

git clone https://github.com/DamageLabs/paper_trail_manager.git
cd paper_trail_manager
bundle install

Running tests:

appraisal rake

The first run downloads gems for each Rails version in the test matrix, which may take a while.

Test Matrix

Tests run against multiple combinations via Appraisal:

Rails	PaperTrail	Pagination
6.1	12.0	kaminari, will_paginate
7.0	12.0	kaminari, will_paginate
7.0	15.0	kaminari, will_paginate
7.1	15.0	kaminari, will_paginate

CI runs each combination across Ruby 3.1, 3.2, and 3.3.

Adding Support for New Versions

1. Update the Appraisals file with new version combinations
2. Run appraisal generate && appraisal install
3. Fix any breaking changes
4. Submit a pull request

License

MIT — see LICENSE.txt for details.

History

This project was originally developed by Igal Koshevoy. Igal passed away on April 9th, 2013, and Tony Guntharp took over maintenance of the project.