Use nested controller or declarative authorization for admin action?

Question

Say, I've an app with multiple models:posts, blogs, todos etc and I want an admin to edit, delete all users posts, blogs, todos, do I create a nested admin controller for each or use declarative authorization to setup an admin account that can edit/destroy the users, posts etc?

I understand this has no right answer, I'm just looking for the easiest and DRYest way to do it.

Thanks

Answer 1

I'm not exactly a rails expert, but I thought this article was good: http://www.contextualdevelopment.com/articles/2008/nested-controllers-and-resources It points out some advantages of using the nested controller thing in the admin context you are describing.

If I understand right, in both cases you need an user with an admin role, right? So probably it's more about how to structure the controller. The nested controller setup imho is a bit cleaner because it saves a couple of conditions in the "main" controller. You simply put everything "admin" into the nested controller and everything else in the main controller.

Answer 2

Declaritive authorization is completely different thing from how you organize your admin situation. These are not different alternatives for the same problem. How you authorize actions or perform access control has nothing to do with whether your admin interface uses nested controllers and a different interface or uses the same interface as regular users with a few more buttons.

That said I'll take a stab at what I think you want to ask: Should your admin interface be the same as your user interface but with a few more buttons for admin actions?

My answer would be no even for the simplest of sites. Imagine having to clean spam from each and every post on your blog by having to visit each and every post.

Now imagine if you had a table of comments by date.

Which would you prefer?

Now if you decide your admins deserve a custom interface that suits their needs then you need to ask if it should be nested.