Using devise with two types of similar users

Question

I know this has been asked a bunch of times but I can't find a good answer.

I'm going to have both merchants and users in my application. The table structure for both would be nearly identical so I would prefer to use one table and a boolean field named "is_merchant".

I would prefer separate sign up pages (users/new and merchants/new) but would like to share the same login page for all users (/login).

I would very much like to use Devise for authentication. However, with Devise this type of system SEEMS to be difficult to attain. Is this the case? Any good guides or tips that I can take a look at? If Devise isn't the best solution for this, any recommendations for another authentication system (note: would like to make it easy in the future to add Facebook auth)?

Many thanks in advance!

Answer 1

Have you thought about using roles? You can use the cancan gem for this. You'll probably want more than just "is_merchant". For example, what about an "is_admin"? At that point you're better off using roles. https://github.com/ryanb/cancan

You can later add Facebook auth with Omni-auth.

Just to be clear, Devise is for including your own authentication system while Omni-auth is for authenticating through sites like Facebook, twitter, etc.

Answer 2

You can also remove the :validatable module specification for devise in your User model and add validates_uniqueness_of with :scope set to :is_merchant. This allows you to use ActiveRecord validation methods instead of Devise's.

Using :scope in validates_uniqueness_of allows validation on the uniqueness of multiple columns.

user.rb:

class User < ActiveRecord::Base

  # ...

  validates_uniqueness_of :email, :scope => :is_merchant

  # Include default devise modules. Others available are:
  # :token_authenticatable, :encryptable, :confirmable, :lockable, :timeoutable and :omniauthable
  devise :database_authenticatable, :registerable,
         :recoverable, :rememberable, :trackable #, :validatable <- removed

  # ...

end

In your new user registration view specify the is_merchant value in your registration form.

new.html.erb

<%= simple_form_for(resource, :as => resource_name, :url => registration_path(resource_name)) do |f| %>

  <%=f.hidden_field :is_merchant, :value => 1 %> # used hidden for my implementation

  # ... other inputs

<% end %>