# MVC Overriding **URL:** \ **Category:** Rails\ **Created:** [May 10, 2007, 6:06am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/mvc-overriding/103768 "2007-05-10T06:06:22Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![soabirw](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/s/f14d63/32.png) [@soabirw](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/soabirw)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2007, 6:06am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/mvc-overriding/103768/1 "2007-05-10T06:06:22Z")
Trying to convert a large application from our home brew PHP framework to Ruby on Rails. I’ve built small things, like blogs and other CMS’s with Rails, but am having a hard time thinking of a better way to impliment some of our specific needs. The big issues if our file overriding. We have a base application that we start with and then do custom work per client on top of that. We never change the base application though. Right now how it works with our PHP framework is with the modules we have a “default” folder with the base modules and a company specific folder that just inherits from the base and overrides methods as needed. But the trickiest part is the views. We didn’t want to duplicate all of the views just to change one or two things. So it also has a default folder and a company specific folder. If the file isn’t in the company specific folder then it looks in the default. So we only have to duplicate and modify a handful of files for each client. I was hoping to use plugins or engines to accomplish this with Rails, but the more I look into it the more it seems it wont go that far. In fact, it seems it works the opposite of what I would like. Ideally we would make the default app the “engine”, then create models, controllers, and views to override the engine. I highly doubt this is a unique problem. What would the Golden Path with Rails be for this? Eric ---
**Author:** ![soabirw](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/s/f14d63/32.png) [@soabirw](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/soabirw)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2007, 6:18am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/mvc-overriding/103768/2 "2007-05-10T06:18:34Z")
Soabirw wrote: > Trying to convert a large application from our home brew PHP framework > to Ruby on Rails. I’ve built small things, like blogs and other CMS’s > with Rails, but am having a hard time thinking of a better way to > impliment some of our specific needs. > > The big issues if our file overriding. We have a base application > that we start with and then do custom work per client on top of that. > We never change the base application though. Right now how it works > with our PHP framework is with the modules we have a “default” folder > with the base modules and a company specific folder that just inherits > from the base and overrides methods as needed. But the trickiest part > is the views. We didn’t want to duplicate all of the views just to > change one or two things. So it also has a default folder and a > company specific folder. If the file isn’t in the company specific > folder then it looks in the default. So we only have to duplicate and > modify a handful of files for each client. > > I was hoping to use plugins or engines to accomplish this with Rails, > but the more I look into it the more it seems it wont go that far. In > fact, it seems it works the opposite of what I would like. Ideally we > would make the default app the “engine”, then create models, > controllers, and views to override the engine. > > I highly doubt this is a unique problem. What would the Golden Path > with Rails be for this? > > Eric Does every version of your application have to be deployed to the one place? If it doesn’t, I’ve heard of people writing apps and implementing customer specific stuff using subversion branches, not a Rails solution, but a solution! RYan. [http://yeahnah.org/](http://yeahnah.org/) ---
**Author:** ![soabirw](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/s/f14d63/32.png) [@soabirw](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/soabirw)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2007, 6:44am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/mvc-overriding/103768/3 "2007-05-10T06:44:24Z")
On May 9, 10:18 pm, Ryan A. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > Does every version of your application have to be deployed to the one > place? If it doesn’t, I’ve heard of people writing apps and implementing > customer specific stuff using subversion branches, not a Rails solution, > but a solution! It used to. The root basically looked like: modules/ company\_def/ company\_one/ company\_two/ web/ company\_def/ company\_one/ company\_two/ Then I came along. Now each company has it’s own section of the repository. So the trunk only contains company\_def, which we use when we create a new application. Then we add company\_specific as needed. But the problem is view overriding. We have multiple packages as well. So here is the typical search pattern. When a request comes in, look for the view in company\_one/package\_admin. If it isn’t in there look in company\_one/package\_def. If it isn’t in there, look in company\_def/package\_admin. If it isn’t in there, look in company\_def/ package\_def. Even if we lose the packages, it will still look in company\_one then in company\_def. I don’t really like this. But it allows us to re-use our views unless we actually need them to be different. It also allows us to make changes to company\_def and then have that automatically work for every single client. Very handy way of adding new features. This is the only system I’ve seen something like this done and I need to be able to some how retain this. Eric ---
**Author:** ![soabirw](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/s/f14d63/32.png) [@soabirw](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/soabirw)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2007, 6:57am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/mvc-overriding/103768/4 "2007-05-10T06:57:24Z")
Was re-reading my post and just wanted to point out, that even though I sound like I want to keep the feature exactly as it is in our current frame work, that is not the case. I need the functionality, but want to do it the RoR way. If there is one. I read the HowTos on plug-ins hoping they would be the answer, but it didn’t look like it. Especially since it didn’t seem to support views. And maybe I’m mistaken in that? My hope was to start up a basic RoR app and then apply the default package plugins as needed, then override them. Or alternatively check out the default RoR app and make the client specific stuff plugins. But from my reading it didn’t seem like that’s what plugins were intended for. Eric