Rails - Apr 2006 - Providing limited CRUD access to arbitrary tables through a web interface.

Hi There

I''m starting Rails a project for the first time (used to work with
PHP).

I have to provide administrator ("super-user") access to a large
number of tables. The access should be available through a web interface (the
tables rendered as HTML forms on the browser, probably through HTML tables
inside the form). From the CRUD set mostly R(etrieve) and U(pdate) are relevant.
However, sometimes the administrator would be allowed to delete rows, and at
other times he won''t. Also, he can''t update all columns (for
example, can''t change the auto-incrementing id primary key). Important
to note that the application is supposed to deal with thousands of rows per
table, which obviously cannot be retrieved and displayed all together: there
would need to be buffering of some sort, to retrieve say rows 1-21 of table
"people", then allow the admin to scroll to view 21-40.

Another desired - though not required - feature is for admin to be able to
retrieve and update tables with arbitrary inner joins. For instance, he would
view an "events" table, and within it he would have a person, with her
details taken from the "people" table. Morover he should be able to
not only transparently retrieve JOINed data but also update it. (E.g. change the
person''s phone number, affecting the "people" table, although
changing other fields in the very same HTML form would cause change to a
different table, the "events" table).

The most relevant existing tool for providing such functionality seems to be
Rails Scaffolds. Are they up to the task?  Can they satisfy the necessary (and
maybe even the desired) requirements?

Tips on the best approach to this task with either scaffolds or other tools
would be welcome.

Cheers,
-- George Penrose

			
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