acts_as_taggable - adding users and normalizing tags

Parker Thompson
Sat, 24 Dec 2005 21:28:39 -0000

Hey all,

I''m wondering how people are using acts_as_taggable.  Two things
I''d
like to do that aren''t supported out of the box are tag normalization
and user attribution.  I can''t imagine I''m the first to think
about
doing this.

>From a schema perspective these things both seem simple, just put the
normalized tag in the tags table, and have a join table that contains
a user id and the denormalized version (i.e. tags -> "swat",
tags_to_XXX -> "S.W.A.T").

But, when I get to the coding part it gets a bit ugly.  Optimally I''d
like to:

  @thing.tag(user_input, :normalize => true, :user => @user)

where this causes the join table (tags_XXXX) to have its user_id fk
set, and populate a ''denormalized'' field with
"S.W.A.T" so that I can
display whatever the user typed on his/her pages.

Anybody got some code they want to share, or should I just start
hacking on taggable?

Thanks,

pt.
--
Parker Thompson
http://www.parkert.com/
510.541.0125