Model Preferences

Model preferences allow you to easily extend Spree models with configuration options. Thanks to this you can store useful information on Spree models, eg.

user.preferred_language = "English"
user.save

​

Defining Model Preferences

To define a model preference, you need to add them to your model class.

Make sure to generate a migration to add the preferences column to the table. This column will store the preferences in a serialized format.

rails g migration AddPreferencesToSpreeUsers preferences:text

Run the migration.

rails db:migrate

class Spree::User < ApplicationRecord
  # ... you existing code ...

  # include the preferable module
  include Spree::Preferences::Preferable
  # define the preferences
  preference :language, :string, default: "English"
  preference :sms_marketing, :boolean, default: false
end

This will add a language preference to the User model. The preference will be stored in the newly created preferences column of the spree_users table. You can add more preferences to the model in the same way.

​

Accessing Model Preferences

Once preferences have been defined for a model, they can be accessed either using the shortcut methods that are generated for each preference or the generic methods that are not specific to a particular preference.

​

Shortcut Methods

There are several shortcut methods that are generated. They are shown below.

Query methods:

user.prefers_sms_marketing? # => false

Reader methods:

user.preferred_sms_marketing      # => false
user.preferred_language   # => "English"

Writer methods:

user.prefers_sms_marketing = false         # => false
user.preferred_language = "English"    # => "English"

Check if a preference is available:

user.has_preference? :sms_marketing

​

Generic Methods

Each shortcut method is essentially a wrapper for the various generic methods shown below:

Query method:

user.prefers?(:sms_marketing)       # => false
user.prefers?(:language)  # => false

Reader methods:

user.preferred(:sms_marketing)      # => false
user.preferred(:language)   # => "English"

user.get_preference :sms_marketing
user.get_preference :language

Writer method:

user.set_preference(:sms_marketing, false)     # => false
user.set_preference(:language, "English")  # => "English"

​

Accessing All Preferences

You can get a hash of all stored preferences by accessing the preferences helper:

user.preferences # => {"language"=>"English", "sms_marketing"=>false}

This hash will contain the value for every preference that has been defined for the model instance, whether the value is the default or one that has been previously stored.

​

Models with preferences

The following Spree models already have preferences defined:

• Spree::Calculator
• Spree::Gateway
• Spree::PageBlock
• Spree::PageSection
• Spree::Page
• Spree::PaymentMethod
• Spree::PromotionRule
• Spree::Store
• Spree::Theme