Creating User and Admin Model using Devise Rails 4.0

This tutorial will show you how to create two models within devise. We will create a User and Admin model.

This tutorial was made using Rails 4 and Devise 3

Installing Devise

First we will install devise.

$ gem install devise

This will install devise. After that we need to add devise into your Gemfile. This can be done by typing

$ gem 'devise'

within your Gemfile. Your Gemfile is within your application's root folder. Next run the generator by using the command

$ rails generate devise:install

Generating a User Model

Next you should create a model called user.

$ rails generate devise user

Rails will create a user model and configure it with Devise modules. It will also create a migration file located in "db/migrate/devise_create_users.rb". Run the command

$ rake db:migrate

When you run db:migrate, rails will create a table called users. It will display

==  DeviseCreateUsers: migrating ==============================================
-- create_table(:users)
-> 0.0071s
-- add_index(:users, :email, {:unique=>true})
-> 0.0009s
-- add_index(:users, :reset_password_token, {:unique=>true})
-> 0.0012s
==  DeviseCreateUsers: migrated (0.0101s) =====================================

Now the the model has been successfully generated. You can see the changes devise has made by visiting these addresses in your browser.

http://localhost:3000/users/sign_up
http://localhost:3000/users/sign_in

You can add

<% if user_signed_in? %>

to the template. This will help to let us know whether devise is working or not. We can also add the link paths. This will allow us to get working links within our page.

new_user_session_path

will allow you to login and it will create a new session until you logout.

edit_user_registration_path

will allow us to change our password and delete our account.

destroy_user_session_path

will allow you to logout and it will destroy your current session.

Here is part of my header file which can be found in "app/views/layouts/_header.html.erb"

<ul class="nav pull-right">
  <li><%= link_to "Home",         root_path %></li>
  <li><%= link_to "Help",         help_path %></li>
  <li><%= link_to "Admin",        new_admin_session_path %></li>
  <% if user_signed_in? %>
    <li id="fat-menu" class="dropdown">
      <a href="#" class="dropdown-toggle" data-toggle="dropdown">
        Account <b class="caret"></b>
      </a>
      <ul class="dropdown-menu">
        <li><%= link_to "Profile", edit_user_registration_path %></li>
        <li><%= link_to "Settings", '#' %></li>
        <li class="divider"></li>
        <li>
          <%= link_to "Logout", destroy_user_session_path, :method => :delete %>
        </li>
      </ul>
    </li>
    <li> <%= link_to "Logout", destroy_user_session_path, :method => :delete %></li>
  <% else %>
    <li><%= link_to "Sign in", new_user_session_path %></li>
  <% end %>
</ul>

If a user is signed in; show a link to users, profile, settings, and logout. Otherwise show the link to sign in.

For the home page of my app I include the link to sign up. The link path to sign up is

new_user_registration_path

My example can be found in "app/views/static_pages/home.html.erb"

<%= link_to "Sign up now!", new_user_registration_path, class: "btn btn-large btn-primary" %>

Generating an Admin Model

Next we will generate the admin model.

$ rails generate devise Admin

Then you should migrate the database by running

$ rake db:migrate

You should see something like this:

==  DeviseCreateAdmins: migrating =============================================
-- create_table(:admins)
-> 0.1063s
-- add_index(:admins, :email, {:unique=>true})
-> 0.0666s
-- add_index(:admins, :reset_password_token, {:unique=>true})
-> 0.0446s
==  DeviseCreateAdmins: migrated (0.2180s) ====================================

The generated admin model can be found here:

http://localhost:3000/admins/sign_up
http://localhost:3000/admins/sign_in

Generating Views for Devise

We also will generate the views for both of the models.

$ rails generate devise:views

You can see the views are generated for devise in the devise folder. "app/views/devise"

Next I would recommend looking at Adding a Username to the User & Admin model