How to make parts of Profile searchable or not - ruby-on-rails-3

Question

In my Rails 3 app, I want to allow a user to specify which parts of their profile can be searchable by others. I know how to do this if I wanted to make the entire user invisible, but how can I set it up so multiple fields can be designated searchable or not separately?
More info:
In terms of functionality, I want to limit searches based on what parts of their profile a user chooses to be searchable in /settings. Parts of the profile would be, for example, #user.profile.hometown or #user.profile.current_city. I'm working off of a Combination of Railscasts #52 and Trevor Turk's tutorial to set what others can search through checkboxes in the settings.
When searchability is defined in settings, when a user searches (or filters) the /users index, what isn't hidden will be public and searchable. In terms of how this works in the DB as far as hiding table columns or grouping, I thought about hiding tables but maybe that's not the best solution. I'm as beginner as can be and hadn't really thought much about that to be honest.

Answer 1

Method 1 - show/hide specific columns
So, the most direct way (and this will work if there are only a handful of things you want to show/hide), is just to create a boolean column for every thing you need to show/hide. So, if you had a phone number field, you could have a column called "show_phone_number", and when true it would show it.
Method 2 - show/hide whole sections
The next level that you might need is, rather than showing/hiding particular columns, have your show/hide boolean columns something like show_contact_info, show_photos, etc. for each logical section that a user would show or hide.
Then in your view, you'd have something like:
app/views/user/show.html.erb (or .haml or whatever you're using)
....
<% if #user.show_contact_info %>
<%= render :partial => "user_contact_info", :locals => {:user => #user} %>
<% end %>
app/views/partials/_user_contact_info.html.erb
<%=h user.email %><br />
<%=h user.phone_number %><br />
<%= user.blog_url %><br />
...
Method 3 - show/hide sections based on who is viewing it
Finally (and the code here is untested, but I think you'll get the idea) let's say your site has a social structure, and you want to show information to some people, but not to others. Basically you'll need the following in some form or another:
Section visibilities (who can view what sections)
Roles (friends, followers, public, private)
a few methods to make these relationships clear/easy to understand
So, in your User model you'd have something like:
class User < ActiveRecord::Base
has_many :friends, :through => "friendships" # or whatever construct you have
has_many :followers, :through => "followings" # or whatever construct you have
has_many :profile_visibilities
...
def is_friends_with(user)
friends.include?(user)
end
def is_a_follower_of(user)
user.followers.include?(self)
end
def can_see(visibilities)
visibilities.each do |v|
v.user == self || v.is_public || can_see_because_we_are_friends(v) || can_see_because_i_follow(v)
end
end
private:
def can_see_because_we_are_friends(visibility)
visibility.is_friend && is_friends_with(visibility.user)
end
def can_see_because_i_follow(visibility)
visibility.is_follower && is_follower_of(visibility.user)
end
end
Then a class called ProfileVisibilities:
class ProfileVisibilities < ActiveRecord::Base
belongs_to :user
...
def is_public
visibility == "public"
end
def is_friend
visibility == "friends"
end
def is_follower
visibility == "followers"
def is_private
!is_public && !is_friend && !is_follower
end
end
Then a table called profile_visibilities
id | user_id | profile_section | visibility
----------------------------------------------
1 | 1 | contact_info | public # <= visible to everyone
2 | 1 | personal_info | friends # <= visible only to "friends"
3 | 1 | blog_posts | friends # <= visible to "friends"
4 | 1 | blog_posts | followers # <= ...and followers
5 | 1 | photos | friends # <= visible only to "friends"
Then in your controller, something like:
app/controllers/users_controller.rb
...
def show
#user = User.find(params[:id])
#contact_info_visibilities = ProfileVisibilities.find(:all, :conditions = ['user_id = ? AND profile_section = "contact_info"', #user.id]
#photo_visibilities = ProfileVisibilities.find(:all, :conditions = ['user_id = ? AND profile_section = "photos"', #user.id]
# ... and more for each section visibility you need
end
...
And in your view:
app/views/user/show.html.erb
...
<% if current_user.can_see(#contact_info_visibilities) %>
<%= render :partial => "user_contact_info", :locals => {:user => #user}
<% end %>
<% if current_user.can_see(#photo_visibilities) %>
<%= render :partial => "user_photos", :locals => {:user => #user}
<% end %>
...