How to like a track and view all liked tracks on my Like index page in my rails app?

Question

I am building a music streaming app and am busy with Likes functionality. The flow is that a user sees a list of tracks and then likes a track. Then, the user navigates to a Likes page where they can see all of the tracks they liked.

When the user clicks the "heart" icon, I am attempting to use simple_form which has two hidden fields. One field is populated with track.id , the other field should take a @likes.id. However, as the user is not supposed to create a "Likes Playlist", I do not have a likes_id available.

As expected, the error that comes up when navigating to likes page is Couldn't find Like without an ID

Question: Can anyone clarify how I might create a likes_id without having to create one in new.html.erb?

Side note: the user can currently create multiple playlist and can add songs to the chosen playlist, I tried following that same logic for Likes so apologies if I am way off.

Here is my routes

resources :likes do
  resources :tracks
end

User Model

class User < ApplicationRecord
  # Include default devise modules. Others available are:
  # :confirmable, :lockable, :timeoutable, :trackable and :omniauthable
  devise :database_authenticatable, :registerable,
          :recoverable, :rememberable, :validatable

  has_many :playlists
  has_many :tracks
  has_many :albums
  has_many :likes
  has_one_attached :photo
end

Likes model

class Like < ApplicationRecord
    has_many :liked_tracks
    has_many :tracks, through: :liked_tracks 
    belongs_to :user
    has_one_attached :photo
end

Here is my join table between tracks and likes

class LikedTrack < ApplicationRecord
    belongs_to :like
    belongs_to :track
end

My tracks Model

class Track < ApplicationRecord
    belongs_to :album
    belongs_to :user
    has_many :playlist_tracks
    has_many :playlists, through: :playlist_tracks
    has_many :likes, through: :liked_tracks
    has_many :tags, through: :tags_tracks
    accepts_nested_attributes_for :playlist_tracks, allow_destroy: true

    validates :title, presence: true, length: { in: 1..20 }
    validates :description, presence: true, length: { in: 10..60 }
    has_one_attached :photo
    has_one_attached :track
end

Here is my Likes Controller

class LikesController < ApplicationController

    def index
        @tracks = LikedTrack.all
    end
    
    def show
        @liked = Like.find(params[:id])
        @tracks = @liked.tracks
    end

    def new
        @liked = Like.new
    end

    def create
        @liked = Like.new(track_params)
        @liked.user = current_user
        if @liked.save!
            redirect_to likes_path(@liked)
        else
            render 'new'
        end
    end

    private

    def track_params
        params.require(:liked_track).permit(:track_id, :like_id)
    end


end

Here is my LikedTracks controller

class LikedTracksController < ApplicationController

    def new
    @liked = Like.new
    end

    def create
    @liked_track = LikedTrack.new(liked_track_params)
        if @liked_track.save!
            redirect_to station_index_path
        else
            render 'new'
        end
    end

    private

    def liked_track_params
        params.require(:liked_track).permit(:track_id, :like_id)
    end

end

This is my navigation to likes page

    <div class="flex">
    <i class="fas fa-heart"></i>
    <%= link_to "Liked", likes_path(current_user), class: "nav-text" %>
    </div>

This is the form embedded within each track card

<%= simple_form_for @liked_track, url: liked_tracks_path, method: :post do |f| %>
    <%= f.input :like_id, as: :hidden, input_html: { value: DESIRED @likes.id} %>
    <%= f.input :track_id, as: :hidden, input_html: { value: track.id } %>
    <%= button_tag type: 'submit', class: "like-button", id: "like-button" do %>
        <i class="fas fa-heart"></i>
<% end %>

Tracks should render on the index page of Likes (index.html.erb).

Thanks and hope my provided code isn't an overkill. Let me know if you need an update to this post!

Answer 1

Yes, your logic is a bit weird here, you can simplify everything with the following:

1. Drop the Like model and database table (not sure why do you want to attach a photo here?)
2. Change the LikedTrack to belong to User instead of Like
3. Rename the LikedTrack to Like

Now you only need to create a new Like record when user clicks the "heart" button, it should take the track_id and user_id as arguments behind your form.