How to reduce the number of tracking records when saving on keystroke?

Question

When saving changes to a model in rails, two popular gems to track changes are paper_trail and audited. These gems create records that contain versioning information every time the model is updated.

How can I reduce the number of records created when saving user input as they type?

For example:

1. User start filling out an input for the title of a model
2. User starts typing "App" then a few second later "le"
3. The database now contains two versioning records "App" and "le"

Note: Putting a delay on the user interface (say 250ms before saving) will reduce the number of records, but we will still have a bunch of updates that are really just one.

Answer 1

I think the best solution would be to skip versioning based on conditions (column, last_updated_at, etc). Then wrap the controller action with the following block.

PaperTrail.request(enabled: false) do
  # no versions created
end

Solution

Use different endpoints for the keystroke requests and form submission.

Keystroke Endpoint

Used only by keystroke requests and is wrapped with the code above to skip_versioning.

Form submission endpoint

Used only when the form is submitted.