For this part of the web tutorial, you'll need to have Rails installed. Here, you'll start a new project in the CLI using the rails new command followed by the name of your project. We'll add "--skip-active-record" because we won't be using the built-in database functionnality.
rails new xmas-poll-2025 --skip-active-record
Go to the file named
gemfile and add these two lines. We are going to install
httparty and
dotenv-rails.
httparty allows us to call endpoints, which is going to be absolutely necessary.
dotenv-rails helps us get variables from the
.env file. This is not so necessary, but it's a good practice and we're gonna do it.
Gemfilegem "httparty"
gem "dotenv-rails", groups: [:development, :test]
Then navigate to the
xmas-poll-2025 directory and run this command in the CLI.
bundle install
Still in the CLI, run this command to create the controller
poll.
rails generate controller poll
This will create the file,
poll_controller.rb, in the
controllers directory of the
app directory. Some other files will be created, but we can examine them later. Let's first make sure that we have an
index action defined, and a
submit action.
app/controllers/poll_controller.rbclass PollController < ApplicationController
def index
end
def submit
end
end
Go to
routes.rb in the
config directory. Make sure your main route is defined. Add a
submit route for the form we're about to create. Note that we have the alias "poll_page" for the main route, and the alias "submit_poll_form" for the form submission route. These will be useful as references. We'll also define the
index action of the
poll controller as the root.
config/routes.rbRails.application.routes.draw do
get "poll/", to: "poll#index", as: "poll_page"
root "poll#index"
post "poll/submit", to: "poll#submit", as: "submit_poll_form"
end
In the
views directory, navigate to
layouts. You should see
application.html.erb. Change the title and add placeholders for alerts and notices.
app/views/layouts/application.html.erb<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<title><%= content_for(:title) || "Xmas Poll 2025" %></title>
<meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width,initial-scale=1">
<meta name="apple-mobile-web-app-capable" content="yes">
<meta name="mobile-web-app-capable" content="yes">
<%= csrf_meta_tags %>
<%= csp_meta_tag %>
<%= yield :head %>
<%# Enable PWA manifest for installable apps (make sure to enable in config/routes.rb too!) %>
<%#= tag.link rel: "manifest", href: pwa_manifest_path(format: :json) %>
<link rel="icon" href="/icon.png" type="image/png">
<link rel="icon" href="/icon.svg" type="image/svg+xml">
<link rel="apple-touch-icon" href="/icon.png">
<%# Includes all stylesheet files in app/assets/stylesheets %>
<%= stylesheet_link_tag :app, "data-turbo-track": "reload" %>
<%= javascript_importmap_tags %>
</head>
<body>
<% if flash[:notice] %>
<div class="notice"><%= flash[:notice] %></div>
<% end %>
<% if flash[:alert] %>
<div class="alert"><%= flash[:alert] %></div>
<% end %>
<br />
<%= yield %>
</body>
</html>
We'll create a view for
poll. In the
views directory, create the
poll directory and in it, create
index.html.erb.
In here, we'll want to use the
form helper. We can manually write the HTML form, but this really just defeats the purpose of using Ruby On Rails. The form will use the route
submit_poll_form, which we defined earlier. Add a button too.
app/views/poll/index.html.erb<div>
<%= form_with url: submit_poll_form_path, local: true do |form| %>
<button>Send</button>
<% end %>
</div>
Run this command in the CLI.
rails server
When you go to http://localhost:3000, you should see this!
Let's just spruce this up a bit. Go to this CSS file. Here, set the font. Background color we'll keep to a Christmassy
deep red. Create
pollform. I want to give it a nice cheerful
bright green background, with round corners. The button will be a big
red one. Obviously, all this is just visual and makes no difference to functionality.
app/assets/stylesheets/application.css
body
{
font-family: Verdana;
font-size: 14px;
background-color: rgb(100, 0, 0);
}
.pollform
{
width: 600px;
padding: 10px;
border-radius: 10px;
border: 3px solid rgb(200, 0, 0);
background-color: rgb(0, 200, 0);
margin: 5% auto 0 auto;
}
button
{
width: 10em;
height: 2em;
margin-top: 10%;
float: right;
font-size: 1.5em;
border-radius: 20px;
border: 3px solid rgb(255, 2525, 255);
background-color: rgb(255, 0, 0);
color: rgb(255, 255, 255);
}
button:hover
{
background-color: rgb(155, 0, 0);
}
In here, set the div class to
pollform.
app/views/poll/index.html.erb
<div class="pollform">
<%= form_with url: submit_poll_form_path, local: true do |form| %>
<button>Send</button>
<% end %>
</div>
There you go. Nothing in the form yet, but you can see that the form details will appear in the
bright green area.
Time to work on the controller. Remember installing
httparty? We'll use it here with an import.
app/controllers/poll_controller.rb
require "httparty"
class PollController < ApplicationController
def index
end
def submit
end
end
Before we continue, we need to add this line to the
.env file. This is the URL of the API endpoint we defined in the previous part of the web tutorial.
.envORDS_API_URL=https://oracleapex.com/ords/teochewthunder/polls/poll/1
Then use the variable
ORDS_API_URL from
.env, in this way.
app/controllers/poll_controller.rb
require "httparty"
class PollController < ApplicationController
ORDS_API_URL = ENV["ORDS_API_URL"]
def index
end
def submit
end
end
For
index, we want to fetch the questions. Use the
get() method of
HTTParty, passing in
ORDS_API_URL as an argument. This makes a call to that specific URL using a
GET request. The result should be assigned to the variable
response.
app/controllers/poll_controller.rb
class PollController < ApplicationController
ORDS_API_URL = ENV["ORDS_API_URL"]
def index
response = HTTParty.get(
ORDS_API_URL
)
end
def submit
end
end
The fetched results should look like this.
{
"items": [
{
"name": "Xmas Poll 2025",
"serial_no": 1,
"title": "JOY TO THE WORLD"
},
{
"name": "Xmas Poll 2025",
"serial_no": 2,
"title": "IT CAME UPON THE MIDNIGHT CLEAR"
},
{
"name": "Xmas Poll 2025",
"serial_no": 3,
"title": "I SAW MOMMY KISSING SANTA CLAUS"
},
{
"name": "Xmas Poll 2025",
"serial_no": 4,
"title": "HARK THE HERALD ANGELS SING"
},
{
"name": "Xmas Poll 2025",
"serial_no": 5,
"title": "DECK THE HALLS"
},
{
"name": "Xmas Poll 2025",
"serial_no": 6,
"title": "THE FIRST NOEL"
},
{
"name": "Xmas Poll 2025",
"serial_no": 7,
"title": "RUDOLPH THE RED-NOSED REINDEER"
},
{
"name": "Xmas Poll 2025",
"serial_no": 8,
"title": "SILENT NIGHT"
},
{
"name": "Xmas Poll 2025",
"serial_no": 9,
"title": "JINGLE BELLS"
},
{
"name": "Xmas Poll 2025",
"serial_no": 10,
"title": "JINGLE BELL ROCK"
}
],
"hasMore": false,
"limit": 25,
"offset": 0,
"count": 10,
"links": [
{
"rel": "self",
"href": "https://oracleapex.com/ords/teochewthunder/polls/poll/1"
},
{
"rel": "edit",
"href": "https://oracleapex.com/ords/teochewthunder/polls/poll/1"
},
{
"rel": "describedby",
"href": "https://oracleapex.com/ords/teochewthunder/metadata-catalog/polls/poll/item"
},
{
"rel": "first",
"href": "https://oracleapex.com/ords/teochewthunder/polls/poll/1"
}
]
}
With that in mind, we'll want to send that data to the view if called successfully. If unsuccessful, we'll want to flash a notice.
app/controllers/poll_controller.rb
def index
response = HTTParty.get(
ORDS_API_URL
)
if response.code == 200
else
flash.now[:alert] = "Error fetching data:"
@api_data = {}
end
end
We can actually test this. Deliberately sabotage the endpoint like this.
app/controllers/poll_controller.rb
response = HTTParty.get(
ORDS_API_URL + "/test"
)
Here you go, a negative result!
Let's just style the notices. We want them to be a slim bar at the top, thus we set the
position property to
absolute. Let's have a nice
green color scheme for a general success message and a
red color scheme for errors.
app/assets/stylesheets/application.css
button:hover
{
background-color: rgb(155, 0, 0);
}
.notice, .alert
{
width: 100%;
position: absolute;
font-size: 0.85em;
font-weight: bold;
padding: 0.5em;
text-align: center;
left: 0;
top: 0;
}
.notice
{
background-color: rgba(100, 255, 100, 0.2);
color: rgb(0, 255, 0);
}
.alert
{
background-color: rgba(255, 100, 100, 0.2);
color: rgb(255, 0, 0);
}
There it is!
Now un-sabotage the API endpoint. We want it to be correct. Make sure that the
parsed_response property of
response is assigned to
api_data. Note that the "@" denotes
api_data as an instance variable that can be used in the corresponding view.
app/controllers/poll_controller.rb
def index
response = HTTParty.get(
ORDS_API_URL
)
if response.code == 200
@api_data = response.parsed_response
else
flash.now[:alert] = "Error fetching data: #{response.body}"
@api_data = {}
end
end
Then we'll work on the view. Remember
api_data and what the returned JSON looked like? Well, if we want the Poll Title, we just need to use the first element of
items, and get the
name property.
app/views/poll/index.html.erb
<h1><%= @api_data["items"][0]["name"] %></h1><div class="pollform">
<%= form_with url: submit_poll_form_path, local: true do |form| %>
<% end %>
</div>
In the CSS, add a styling for h1 tags.
app/assets/stylesheets/application.css
body
{
font-family: Verdana;
font-size: 14px;
background-color: rgb(100, 0, 0);
}
h1
{
text-align: center;
color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.5);
}
.pollform
{
width: 600px;
padding: 10px;
border-radius: 10px;
border: 3px solid rgb(200, 0, 0);
background-color: rgb(0, 200, 0);
margin: 5% auto 0 auto;
}
And here is the header!
Now we'll want to display the rest of
api_data. Let's have a table in there, with these headers.
app/views/poll/index.html.erb
<h1><%= @api_data["items"][0]["name"] %></h1>
<div class="pollform">
<%= form_with url: submit_poll_form_path, local: true do |form| %>
<table>
<tr>
<td width="300px"><b>Carol</b></td>
<td width="600px"><b>Rating (1 = lowest, 5 = highest)</b></td>
</tr>
</table> <button>Send</button>
<% end %>
</div>
So far so good...
Then we use the each keyword on
items, to iterate through it. Each instance of
items will be known as
question within this loop. And for each instance, we will have a HTML table row and two columns.
app/views/poll/index.html.erb
<h1><%= @api_data["items"][0]["name"] %></h1>
<div class="pollform">
<%= form_with url: submit_poll_form_path, local: true do |form| %>
<table>
<tr>
<td width="300px"><b>Carol</b></td>
<td width="600px"><b>Rating (1 = lowest, 5 = highest)</b></td>
</tr>
<% @api_data["items"].each do |question| %>
<tr>
<td></td>
<td></td>
</tr>
<% end %> </table>
<button>Send</button>
<% end %>
</div>
Here, we'll reflect the
question property value for
title.
app/views/poll/index.html.erb
<h1><%= @api_data["items"][0]["name"] %></h1>
<div class="pollform">
<%= form_with url: submit_poll_form_path, local: true do |form| %>
<table>
<tr>
<td width="300px"><b>Carol</b></td>
<td width="600px"><b>Rating (1 = lowest, 5 = highest)</b></td>
</tr>
<% @api_data["items"].each do |question| %>
<tr>
<td>
<%= form.label nil, "#{question['title']}" %></td>
<td></td>
</tr>
<% end %>
</table>
<button>Send</button>
<% end %>
</div>
And here all the questions from the poll, the names of the carols, are displayed!
Next we want to display a series of radio buttons. The values will be from 1 to 5. To that end, we should define
rating_options as a collection containing values 1, 2, 3 4 and 5. Then we use the
to_a() method to convert it to an array.
app/views/poll/index.html.erb
<h1><%= @api_data["items"][0]["name"] %></h1>
<div class="pollform">
<%= form_with url: submit_poll_form_path, local: true do |form| %>
<% rating_options = (1..5).to_a %> <table>
<tr>
<td width="300px"><b>Carol</b></td>
<td width="600px"><b>Rating (1 = lowest, 5 = highest)</b></td>
</tr>
<% @api_data["items"].each do |question| %>
<tr>
<td><%= form.label nil, "#{question['title']}" %></td>
<td></td>
</tr>
<% end %>
</table>
<button>Send</button>
<% end %>
</div>
In here, we want to iterate through
rating_options using each. Each element will be referred to as
option.
app/views/poll/index.html.erb<tr>
<td><%= form.label nil, "#{question['title']}" %></td>
<td>
<% rating_options.each do |option| %>
<% end %>
</td>
</tr>
In here, we use the form helper object
radio_button. We pass in
option as its value. Since it's a form element, it would be proper to give it
name and
id properties as well, which we will base on the value of the property
serial_no, which is unique in each poll. The default value checked is always 3. You may notice ":none", passed in as the first argument. You can't omit this; I've tried and the server complains. This is actually meant to be the name of the argument, but I've overwritten it later as you can see, and now ":none" is just a placeholder value.
app/views/poll/index.html.erb
<tr>
<td><%= form.label nil, "#{question['title']}" %></td>
<td>
<% rating_options.each do |option| %>
<%= form.radio_button :none,
option,
name: "answers[#{question['serial_no']}]",
id: "answer_#{question['serial_no']}_#{option}",
checked: option == 3
%>
<% end %>
</td>
</tr>
And now we have a label which displays
option as the text, and preferences the element with the id specified, e.g, answer_2_1.
app/views/poll/index.html.erb
<tr>
<td><%= form.label nil, "#{question['title']}" %></td>
<td>
<% rating_options.each do |option| %>
<%= form.radio_button :none,
option,
name: "answers[#{question['serial_no']}]",
id: "answer_#{question['serial_no']}_#{option}",
checked: option == 3
%>
<%= form.label "answer_#{question['serial_no']}_#{option}", option %>
<% end %>
</td>
</tr>
So there, you see we have a bunch of radio buttons and labels!
Believe it or not, this is actually the
easy part. Brace yourselves!
Next
Handling form submission.
