---
title: Fewer Rails Flash Messages
teaser:
tags: web,rails,clearance
author: Dan Croak
published_on: 2011-07-05
---

[Clearance](http://github.com/thoughtbot/clearance) 0.12.0 was released last
week with a [continued
focus](https://thoughtbot.com/blog/post/5545254885/confirmation-bias) on user
and developer experience.

## For users: flashes

We removed redundant flash messages like 'Signed in.', 'Signed out.', and 'You
are now signed up.' because it was visually obvious when you completed those
actions.

We previously used flashes more to follow typical Rails convention (in
controllers, successes get a flash and a redirect and failures get error
messages and a render template) than providing informational value to the user.

## For users: redirects

When a user reset their password, they used to get redirected to the sign in
page with a flash message that said 'You will receive an email within the next
few minutes. It contains instructions for changing your password.'

We changed that to render a `create.html.erb` template with the same text
because the sign in form is not what you want to see when you don't know your
password. We also wanted to make it clear that you have to leave the app to
continue.

These changes became more obvious as we started to use [sexy CSS3
flashes](https://github.com/plapier/sexy-css3-flashes), which displays the
flash for a few seconds, then hides itself without breaking a layout.

## For developers: Rails version support via Appraisal

Clearance now works with Rails 3.0.x, 3.1.x, and 3.2.x. We use
[Appraisal](https://github.com/thoughtbot/appraisal) to test against these
versions of Rails:

    ['3.0.20', '3.1.11', '3.2.12'].each do |rails_version|
      appraise "#{rails_version}" do
        gem 'rails', rails_version
      end
    end

## For developers: no password necessary

We simplified the Cucumber features so developers don't have to specify a
password.

Previously:

    Given I am signed up as "email@example.com/password"
    When I sign in as "email@example.com/password"

Now:

    Given I am signed up as "email@example.com"
    When I sign in as "email@example.com"

We defaulted the factories so they always create users with password of "password".

## For developers: RSpec-compatible matcher

There's a `deny_access` matcher. Since the earliest versions of Clearance,
there was an "Shoulda macro", which has [fallen out of
favor](https://thoughtbot.com/blog/post/2338374626/shoulda-matchers) in place
of matchers. This matcher only depends on Ruby and "should" work with any test
framework like RSpec or Test::Unit.