# Need help developing a plugin

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/need-help-developing-a-plugin/110389>\
**Category:** Rails\
**Created:** [July 25, 2007, 11:40pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/need-help-developing-a-plugin/110389 "2007-07-25T23:40:29Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![schof](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/s/8dc957/32.png) [@schof](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/schof)\
**Post date:** [July 25, 2007, 11:40pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/need-help-developing-a-plugin/110389/1 "2007-07-25T23:40:29Z")

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I’m working on a plugin and I’m having some issues. I’m trying to  
check in the code so that it is always usable as a plugin for general  
users. So my stylesheets, etc. are in an ‘assets’ directory instead  
of ‘public’, etc. (I should also mention I am using the engines  
plugin.)

During development I have an empty top level project and my plugin is  
in vendors/plugin. The problem is the IDE’s and Rails scripts are all  
geared towards development in the project root. Any suggestions for a  
simple way to develop a plugin in the “top level” but still work as a  
plugin when I check it into SVN? I was thinking there might be some  
scripts that I could keep local to my machine to set things right.  
Perhaps alter the server startup script? Or maybe I’m going about  
this all wrong.

TIA,

Sean

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**Author:** ![schof](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/s/8dc957/32.png) [@schof](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/schof)\
**Post date:** [July 26, 2007, 12:01am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/need-help-developing-a-plugin/110389/2 "2007-07-26T00:01:47Z")

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not sure if i understood what you want but it sounds like you might  
want something like svn:externals

[http://svnbook.red-bean.com/en/1.0/ch07s03.html](http://svnbook.red-bean.com/en/1.0/ch07s03.html)

see if that is what you want, and if not, let the group know.

Chris

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**Author:** ![schof](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/s/8dc957/32.png) [@schof](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/schof)\
**Post date:** [July 26, 2007, 1:23am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/need-help-developing-a-plugin/110389/3 "2007-07-26T01:23:30Z")

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Hmmm. I hadn’t thought of svn:externals (although I’ve used them -  
and been burned by them in the past.) I guess if this would purely  
for developer convenience we could avoid some of the pitfalls of that  
approach. The biggest problem I’ve had in the past with externals is  
keeping them all consistent when branching and tagging. I

Thanks for the tip.

Sean

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![schof](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/s/8dc957/32.png) [@schof](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/schof)\
**Post date:** [July 26, 2007, 9:58pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/need-help-developing-a-plugin/110389/4 "2007-07-26T21:58:23Z")

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OK one problem though is with individual files. svn:externals does  
not support individual files. Maybe we tweak the server script to  
copy over these from a different location? Any other suggestions?

Sean

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![schof](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/s/8dc957/32.png) [@schof](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/schof)\
**Post date:** [July 26, 2007, 1:27am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/need-help-developing-a-plugin/110389/5 "2007-07-26T01:27:31Z")

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May be [http://piston.rubyforge.org/](http://piston.rubyforge.org/)

On 7/26/07, schof [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote:

> > On 7/25/07, schof [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote:
> > 
> > > in vendors/plugin. The problem is the IDE’s and Rails scripts are all
> 
> >

–  
Cheers!

- Pratik  
[http://m.onkey.org](http://m.onkey.org)