DevNotes: Plugin, Component, Generator, or Engine?

I’m porting a small, but handy tool from the ColdFusion community called
DevNotes. Basically, it should be a drop-in functionality that one would
add to an existing app in the development stage. Essentially, it is a
place for developers and clients to make notes on each page (keyed off
the controller/action) that would show as a threaded discussion at the
bottom of the page. There is also a small form to reply and add new
notes.

I started this as a plugin, but realized that I need a controller to add
a note and show the notes. Then I thought a generator, might work well.
Then a component (and so on…) I figured I’d just ask. I’m not sure
where it cleanly fits. For now, I’m building it as a stand alone app,
but need to “convert” it to some type of drop=in. I’d really appreciate
any feedback on this. Thanks.

–Ryan

I implemented a similar feature for ‘comments’ using a component. It
seems to work pretty well that way. In my case, it looks at the entire
URL for the page (minus any params) and uses that as the key. It seems
to work well, but I haven’t finished AJAX’ing it yet.

Such a thing might also work well as an engine.

_Kevin

On Wednesday, April 05, 2006, at 3:11 PM, Ryan W. wrote:

Then a component (and so on…) I figured I’d just ask. I’m not sure
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http://lists.rubyonrails.org/mailman/listinfo/rails

_Kevin