Hey everyone! I’m working on a Rails project and want to add some cool features like collaborative editing and version history for documents. I know Google Docs does this stuff, but I want to keep it all in-house.
I’ve been looking around for Ruby gems that might help, but I’m not sure where to start. Has anyone built something like this before? What tools did you use?
I’m not really worried about real-time editing where multiple people can work on the same doc at once. That seems like overkill for what I need. Just looking for:
A way for users to edit the same document (not at the same time)
Keeping track of changes and who made them
Maybe being able to roll back to older versions
Any tips or recommendations would be super helpful! Thanks in advance!
hey, have u tried looking at the ‘diffy’ gem? it’s pretty cool for showing diffs between versions. Not as fancy as paper_trail but it gets the job done. you could pair it with some basic versioning logic in ur models. just an idea, hope it helps!
For your collaborative document editing needs, I’d recommend looking into the ‘paper_trail’ gem. It’s a robust solution for tracking changes and versioning in Rails applications. I’ve used it in a couple of projects, and it’s been quite reliable.
paper_trail integrates seamlessly with ActiveRecord models, allowing you to track changes to your documents effortlessly. It maintains a versioned copy of your model each time it’s updated, which addresses your requirement for change tracking and version history.
As for collaborative editing, you could implement a simple check-out system using a status column in your document model. This would prevent simultaneous edits while still allowing multiple users to work on the same document sequentially.
For rolling back to older versions, paper_trail provides methods to revert changes easily. It’s not as flashy as Google Docs, but it should cover your basic needs without overcomplicating your project.
I’ve actually implemented something similar in a recent project, and I found the ‘audited’ gem to be incredibly useful. It’s less well-known than paper_trail, but it offers robust versioning and auditing capabilities that might suit your needs perfectly.
Audited automatically tracks changes to your models, including who made the changes and when. It’s relatively easy to set up and integrates well with Rails. You can use it to create a version history for your documents and even revert to previous versions if needed.
For the collaborative aspect, I implemented a simple locking mechanism using a ‘locked_by’ and ‘locked_at’ column in the document model. This prevented concurrent edits while allowing sequential collaboration.
One thing to keep in mind is that audited can generate a lot of data over time, so you might want to consider periodically cleaning up old audit logs if storage becomes an issue. Overall, it’s been a solid choice for my project, and it might be worth exploring for yours too.