Quick Guide: Installing Noticed

Noticed is a gem designed to simplify managing user notifications. While it might be overkill for today’s task, it shines when you need to send multiple types of notifications (email, push, Slack) to various users, which we will address tomorrow.

For today’s example, we’ll set up email notifications for new user signups. Let’s dive in:

Step 1: Install Noticed

First, add noticed to your Gemfile and install it:

bundle add noticed
rails noticed:install:migrations
rails db:migrate

This prepares your app for notifications by creating a table to track events and notifications. For example, when a new user signs up, you could notify all admins in your system—creating one event and multiple notifications.

Step 2: Create a Notification Mailer

Next, generate a standard Rails mailer to handle email notifications. The key difference here is following Noticed conventions for parameters:

rails generate mailer UserMailer new_user_signed_up

Here’s the mailer:

# app/mailers/user_mailer.rb
class UserMailer < ApplicationMailer
	def new_user_signed_up
		@recipient = params[:recipient] # Provided by Noticed
		@new_user = params[:record]   # The subject of the notification

		mail to: recipient.email_address
	end
end

Step 3: Create a Noticed Notifier

While you could call the mailer directly, a Noticed notifier offers more flexibility. Generate it like so:

rails generate noticed:notifier NewUserNotifier

Here’s how to configure the notifier to use your mailer:

# app/notifiers/new_user_notifier.rb
class NewUserNotifier < ApplicationNotifier
	deliver_by :email do |config|
		config.mailer = "UserMailer"
		config.method = "new_user_signed_up"
	end
end

Finally, use the notifier in your controller to send notifications to all admin users when a new user signs up:

# app/controllers/users_controller.rb
class UsersController < ApplicationController
	def create
		# …
		
		if user.save
			NewUserNotifier.with(record: user).deliver(Users.admins)
			# redirect_to etc.
		end
	end
end

With this setup, you’re tracking notifications in the database and sending emails seamlessly. Noticed handles the heavy lifting, making it easier to extend your notifications later.

Tomorrow, we’ll enhance this setup by adding a delivery option for native web-based push notifications. Stay tuned!