Default has_one associations in Rails

This week my team was working on a component that needs a default image.

We're using has_one to set up a relationship between the component and imageable.

Our component looked like this at first:

class Component < ApplicationRecord
    belongs_to :page

    has_one :background_image, -> { where image_category: 'background_image' }, class_name: 'Image', as: :imageable, dependent: :destroy
end

When our users create a new Component, they get a preview of it, and we want our preview to have a default image associated with it. In order to set up a default has_one association, we modified our model to look like:

class Component < ApplicationRecord
    after_create :create_stand_in_image
    belongs_to :page

    has_one :background_image, -> { where image_category: 'background_image' }, class_name: 'Image', as: :imageable, dependent: :destroy

    def create_stand_in_image
        create_background_image!(slug: "circle_component_#{id}_background_image", image_value: Rails.root.join('app/assets/images/default_component_image.jpg').open )
    end
end

This modification uses an after_create Active Record callback to run the create_background_image! method every time a new Component is created. So when a user makes a new one, they'll have our default_component_image.jpg file on hand.