I'd like to be able to surface custom variables via JSON that I can access in a view. More specifically, I'd like to add methods to currentUser. The way this is done currently is by adding new attributes to the CurrentUserSerializer. These attributes are then preloaded as JSON within ApplicationController. I was hoping I could simply do the following in a plugin to add new attributes:
class CurrentUserSerializer < BasicUserSerializer
attributes :my_custom_attribute
def my_custom_attribute
true
end
end
But what this actually did was override the entire CurrentUserSerializer and break the app. Sad times. I then tried this, knowing that you can use this method with models to reopen and extend them:
class ::CurrentUserSerializer
attributes :my_custom_attribute
def my_custom_attribute
true
end
end
This ended up with the same result, i.e. overrode entire CurrentUserSerializer and broke the app. Then I thought maybe what I really needed to do was extend the attributes method. So, I retried both scenarios above (i.e. class CurrentUserSerializer < BasicUserSerializer and class ::CurrentUserSerializer) with the following code in a plugin:
def attributes
hash = super
hash['my_custom_attribute'] = true
hash
end
App broke once again... ![frowning]( ":frowning:")
So that really left me with two options:
- Completely monkey-patch
CurrentUserSerializer. This works, but the downside here is that if Discourse's CurrentUserSerializer changes, then my app breaks. Not a good option, IMO.
- Create a new serializer called
MyCurrentUserSerializer that inherits from CurrentUserSerializer so that I can override MyCurrentUserSerializer in a plugin and still keep all the goodness of CurrentUserSerializer intact. Here's what that would look like:
app/serializers/my_current_user_serializer.rb
class MyCurrentUserSerializer < CurrentUserSerializer; end
app/controllers/application_controller.rb
def preload_current_user_data
store_preloaded("currentUser", MultiJson.dump(MyCurrentUserSerializer.new(current_user, scope: guardian, root: false)))
serializer = ActiveModel::ArraySerializer.new(TopicTrackingState.report([current_user.id]), each_serializer: TopicTrackingStateSerializer)
store_preloaded("topicTrackingStates", MultiJson.dump(serializer))
end
app/controllers/session_controller.rb
def current
if current_user.present?
render_serialized(current_user, MyCurrentUserSerializer)
else
render nothing: true, status: 404
end
end
Then, in my plugin, I can simply do the following and everything works!
class MyCurrentUserSerializer < CurrentUserSerializer
def attributes
hash = super
hash['my_custom_attribute'] = true
hash
end
end
So the question for you, Discourse team, is would you accept this PR if I submitted it? If not, what would you suggest I do instead? Thanks!
. Is it possible?
