Rails: Paperclip with multiple placeholder images?

1
votes

I've been trying to experiment with having avatars for users in my app, and I've set this up where a user can upload an image using Paperclip. Paperclip has a nice default functionality where you can define a placeholder image when the user has not uploaded an image. What I'm wondering is, is there any way to create a set of placeholder images and have paperclip choose one at random when the associated record is created? IE so not all the "no avatar" icons have to be identical?

Thanks!

2
ruby-on-railsruby-on-rails-3randompaperclipplaceholder

2 Answers

3
votes

My best guess for how to accomplish this would be to "override" how you access your avatar images.

Maybe something along the following:

 module UserHelper

   def avatar_url(user)
     user.avatar ? user.avatar.url : random_avatar_url
   end

   def random_avatar_url
     ...
   end

 end

This way you can use one interface to access the existing avatar or a randomly chosen one from your views. You don't want to use random_avatar_url directly from your views, so maybe private or protect it to make sure others know.

0
votes
class User
  def avatar_image
   avatar.exists? ? avatar.url : "path_to_placeholder_image"
  end
end