Unfortunately typus as good as it is has it’s own authentication and authorisation framework that out of the box does not play nice with devise. I’d like only one way of logging into the system, backend or front end.

Create the following module which is a modified version of the typus code

module Typus
  module Orm
    module ActiveRecord
      module User

        def self.included(base)
          base.extend(ClassMethods)
        end

        module ClassMethods

          def enable_as_typus_devise_user
            extend ClassMethodsMixin
            validates :role, :presence => true
            serialize :preferences
            include InstanceMethods

          end

        end

        module ClassMethodsMixin

          def authenticate(email, password)
            resource = find_for_database_authentication({ :email=>email })
            r = resource && resource.valid_password?( password ) ? resource : nil
          end

        end

        module InstanceMethods

          def name
            full_name = []
            if respond_to?(:first_name) && respond_to?(:last_name)
              full_name = [first_name, last_name].delete_if { |s| s.blank? }
            end
            full_name.any? ? full_name.join(" ") : email
          end

          # This includes lots of stuff we don't need but
          # is easier than copy and pasting
          include Typus::EnableAsTypusUser::InstanceMethods


        end

      end
    end
  end
end

module Typus

  module Authentication

    module Session

      # Monkey patch the Session#authenticate to use
      # devise
      def authenticate
        if user_signed_in?
          u = current_user
          session[:typus_user_id] = u.id
        else
          back_to = request.env['PATH_INFO'] unless [
            admin_dashboard_path, 
            admin_path
          ].include?(request.env['PATH_INFO'])

          redirect_to new_user_session(:back_to => back_to)
        end

      end

      def admin_user
        current_user
      end

    end

  end

end

and mix it in like

require 'typus_devise'

class User < ActiveRecord::Base

  # Include default devise modules. Others available are:
  # :token_authenticatable, :confirmable, :lockable and :timeoutable
  devise :database_authenticatable, :registerable,
         :recoverable, :rememberable, :trackable, :validatable

  # Setup accessible (or protected) attributes for your model
  attr_accessible :email, :password, :password_confirmation, :remember_me

  belongs_to :role

  public

  #
  # Typus adaptation
  #

  include Typus::Orm::ActiveRecord::User
  enable_as_typus_devise_user

  alias :orole :role
  def role
    orole.name
  end

end

There are still a couple of gotchas I haven’t figured out.

• The “Sign Out” link on the typus dashboard needs rerouting to the devise sign out.
• I can only handle single roles per user which is not ideal
• The roles have to be returned as strings not role objects