ActsAsFilter
===============

Acts As Filter is an ActiveRecord filtering plugin based on named_scopes


Installation
============

In your model class your declare "acts_as_filter" and you now have an extra class method: find_by_filter

  find_by_filter
  -------------------------------
  find_by_filter accepts a hash of scope names and values, and chains them into parametised scope calls
  
  If the model has a named_scope that matches the provided name, this is called.
  If no named_scope is found, an anonymous scopes is created.
  
  For example:
  Given the following model definitions
  
  class Document < ActiveRecord::Base
    acts_as_filter
    belongs_to :author
    

    named_scope :author_name, 
                lambda { |*args| {
                  :include => "author",
                  :conditions => ["authors.name = ?", args.first]
                }}
                                
  end

  class Author < ActiveRecord::Base
    has_many :documents
  end
  
  We can now from our controller accept incoming parameters and pass them to find_by_filter:
  
  # uses the declared "author_name" scope
  options = {:author_name => "toby"}      
  documents = Document.find_by_filter(options)
    
  # creates an anonymous scope on the "name" column
  options = {:name => "document_1"}      
  documents = Document.find_by_filter(options)     
      
  # combines the two above scopes into a single chained call
  options = {:author_name => "toby", :name => "document_1"}      
  documents = Document.find_by_filter(options)     
  
  
  See?
  Awesome. 
  
Pending
==============
Adding smart pagination as a default (everyone uses will_paginate, right?)


Copyright (c) 2008 Toby Hede (tobyhede@finitestatemachine.com), released under the MIT license