# Controller plugin? **URL:** \ **Category:** Rails\ **Created:** [October 16, 2007, 8:30pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/controller-plugin/117432 "2007-10-16T20:30:13Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![tmac](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/t/5e9695/32.png) [@tmac](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/tmac)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2007, 8:30pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/controller-plugin/117432/1 "2007-10-16T20:30:13Z")
Do I understand correctly that you can’t write controller plugins? Of course “can’t” is a big word, what I’m really wondering is what the major stumbling blocks to doing so are? Am I missing something or wouldn’t this be extremely useful? Thanks! Tim ---
**Author:** ![tmac](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/t/5e9695/32.png) [@tmac](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/tmac)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2007, 9:00pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/controller-plugin/117432/2 "2007-10-16T21:00:03Z")
I was reading this article: [http://nubyonrails.com/articles/2006/05/04/the-complete-guide-to-rails-plugins-part-i](http://nubyonrails.com/articles/2006/05/04/the-complete-guide-to-rails-plugins-part-i) to quote: “Controllers: You can’t directly write a controller plugin, but you can write a generator that copies a controller to your app/controllers directory. Intermediate difficulty.” ??? Tim ---
**Author:** ![tmac](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/t/5e9695/32.png) [@tmac](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/tmac)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2007, 8:52pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/controller-plugin/117432/3 "2007-10-16T20:52:27Z")
On 10/16/07, tmac [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > Do I understand correctly that you can’t write controller plugins? > > Of course “can’t” is a big word, what I’m really wondering is what the > major stumbling blocks to doing so are? > > Am I missing something or wouldn’t this be extremely useful? googling rails controller plugin got me here [http://wiki.rubyonrails.org/rails/pages/Controller+Extensions](http://wiki.rubyonrails.org/rails/pages/Controller+Extensions) in short order. Plugins are just code. – Rick DeNatale My blog on Ruby [http://talklikeaduck.denhaven2.com/](http://talklikeaduck.denhaven2.com/) ---
**Author:** ![tmac](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/t/5e9695/32.png) [@tmac](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/tmac)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2007, 9:47pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/controller-plugin/117432/4 "2007-10-16T21:47:25Z")
I think that’s pretty much the answer I was hoping for Jason! So the article is wrong and yes you can write controller plugins… thought that was odd! I have a site/project where I use a controller base class that handles all the standard REST methods (new, show, edit, etc…) in a fairly generic way. It would certainly take some work but I thought it might be nice to share it as a plugin… at least for my own projects, and others if there is any interest. I have looked a bit but haven’t seen anything like it. Is there a plugin that already does something similar? Thanks a ton Jason! Tim ---
**Author:** ![tmac](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/t/5e9695/32.png) [@tmac](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/tmac)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2007, 6:14am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/controller-plugin/117432/5 "2007-10-17T06:14:09Z")
Hi Tim Have you taken a lookat activescaffold ? Imanot sure towhat extentisit RESTful… ---
**Author:** ![tmac](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/t/5e9695/32.png) [@tmac](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/tmac)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2007, 9:28pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/controller-plugin/117432/6 "2007-10-16T21:28:41Z")
Outside of me being unable to really understand what “controller plugin” means in the quote, the article is from over a year ago. If you’re trying to add macros or what not to controllers, you simply do: ActionController::Base.send(:include, MyModuleOfMethods) in your plugin/init.rb What are you trying to do tmac? Jason ---
**Author:** ![tmac](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/t/5e9695/32.png) [@tmac](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/tmac)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2007, 10:59am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/controller-plugin/117432/7 "2007-10-17T10:59:26Z")
On 16 Oct 2007, at 20:46, tmac wrote: > I think that’s pretty much the answer I was hoping for Jason! So the > article is wrong and yes you can write controller plugins… thought > that was odd! Yes and no. What the article is saying is that you can’t have foo\_controller in your plugin, install your plugin and then try to access [应用宝官网-全网最新最热手机应用游戏下载](http://myapp.com/foo) I think that there is stuff afoot so that you can specify the paths searched for views & controllers, but out of the box it won’t work. What you can of course do is a generator, provide modules for controllers or extend ActionController with macros and so on. Fred ---
**Author:** ![tmac](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/t/5e9695/32.png) [@tmac](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/tmac)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2007, 12:50am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/controller-plugin/117432/8 "2007-10-19T00:50:25Z")
Thanks for setting me down the right path here guys… It appears to be relatively straight forward. CHH - I’m only vaguely familiar with activescaffold … I was really trying to avoid a generator … unless I’m misunderstanding they typically generate a lot of very similar code over and over … this is for more than just admin stuff too:-) I really just want to be able to inherit functionality into my controllers. Tim ---
**Author:** ![tmac](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/t/5e9695/32.png) [@tmac](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/tmac)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2007, 3:57pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/controller-plugin/117432/9 "2007-10-17T15:57:52Z")
On 10/17/07, Frederick C. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > foo\_controller in your plugin, install your plugin and then try to > access [应用宝官网-全网最新最热手机应用游戏下载](http://myapp.com/foo) > I think that there is stuff afoot so that you can specify the paths > searched for views & controllers, but out of the box it won’t work. > What you can of course do is a generator, provide modules for > controllers or extend ActionController with macros and so on. Hmmm, looks like you already can. Try adding your load paths to: - MyController.template\_root - ActionController::Routing.controller\_paths - Dependencies.load\_paths Demo: $ cat vendor/plugins/test\_plugin/init.rb config.after\_initialize do path = File.expand\_path(‘app/controllers’, File.dirname( **FILE** )) ActionController::Routing.controller\_paths \<\< path Dependencies.load\_paths \<\< path end $ cat vendor/plugins/test\_plugin/app/controllers/test\_plugin\_controller.rb class TestPluginController \< ApplicationController self.template\_root = File.expand\_path(‘…/views’, File.dirname( **FILE** )) def test end end $ cat vendor/plugins/test\_plugin/app/views/test\_plugin/test.rhtml hi $ script/console Loading development environment. > > app.get(‘/test\_plugin/test’); puts app.response.body > > hi > > =\> nil