Multiple update with checkbox in Rails

Updating multiple items through checkbox is implemented usually in many applications.

Let see how to select some or all items using checkbox and update the selected items in Ruby on Rails

1. Configuring the routes:

For building the applications in the REST way, we can create tasks_controller in both the namespace "multiple" and the "standard" routes

config/routes.rb

namespace :multiple do
  resource :tasks, only: :update

2. Generating the controllers:

We can use update_all to update several attributes for multiple records. Note that update_all don't update the timestamp

app/controllers/multiple/tasks_controller.rb

class Multiple::WorkFlowsController < ApplicationController
  def update
  	Task.where(id: params[:task_ids]).update_all completed_at: Time.now
    redirect_to :back
  end
end

3. Get the checkboxes form for selecting multiple items:

By using the check_box_tag, all the values'll be passed into an array

app/views/tasks/index.html.erb

<% form_tag multiple_tasks_path, :method => :get do %>
  <table>
    <% for task in @incomplete_tasks %>
      <tr>
        <td>
          <%= check_box_tag "task_ids[]", task.id %>
          <%= task.name %>
        </td>
      </tr>
    <% end %>
  </table>
<%= submit_tag "Mark as Complete" %>

**4. Check all checkboxes: **

In this article, we use javascript to select all the items when clicking on the checkall checkboxes

app/views/tasks/index.html.erb

<%= check_box_tag "check_all", "check_all", false, class: "check_all" %>
<% form_tag multiple_tasks_path, :method => :get do %>
  <table>
    <% for task in @incomplete_tasks %>
      <tr>
        <td>
          <%= check_box_tag "task_ids[]", task.id, class: "task-updatable" %>
          <%= task.name %>
        </td>
      </tr>
    <% end %>
  </table>
<%= submit_tag "Mark as Complete" %>

<script type="text/javascript">
  $(document).on("click", ".check_all", function(e) {
    $(".task-updatable").prop("checked", !this.checked);
	$(".task-updatable").click();
  });
</script>

Conclusion

For updating multiple record with checkboxes, here a good way to separate the controllers and the views but not the model and still kept the application in the REST way.