# Rails Plugins: How to copy artefacts to the public directory **URL:** \ **Category:** Rails\ **Created:** [March 25, 2006, 5:10pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/rails-plugins-how-to-copy-artefacts-to-the-public-directory/87130 "2006-03-25T17:10:39Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 3\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Mariano\_K](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/m/eada6e/32.png) [@Mariano\_K](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Mariano_K)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2006, 5:10pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/rails-plugins-how-to-copy-artefacts-to-the-public-directory/87130/1 "2006-03-25T17:10:39Z")
Hi, I want to write a plugin that uses JavaScript and I am wondering how to put the static content, i.e. the JavaScript, in place? I read the documentation I found ( [http://wiki.rubyonrails.org/rails/pages/Plugins](http://wiki.rubyonrails.org/rails/pages/Plugins) and links) and looked at the listed plugins. One thing I found was that subversion seems to be a prerequisite for providing or even installing plugins. Is that right? The other thing was that there were two plugins that provided content. a) Was providing a directory on the same level as the plugin itself, so I guess the author assumes the user would copy the content itself. B) The css graph plugin ([http://nubyonrails.topfunky.com/pages/css\_graphs](http://nubyonrails.topfunky.com/pages/css_graphs)) from Geoffrey Grosenbach, provides an “images” directory in the plugin top level directory ([http://topfunky.net/svn/plugins/css\_graphs/](http://topfunky.net/svn/plugins/css_graphs/)). So I assumed that script/plugin install would use this structure and put it below public. But this assumption is wrong: – DC:~/t2/testtest mkamp$ ./script/plugin install [http://topfunky.net/svn/plugins/css\_graphs](http://topfunky.net/svn/plugins/css_graphs) ## A /Users/mkamp/t2/testtest/vendor/plugins/css\_graphs A /Users/mkamp/t2/testtest/vendor/plugins/css\_graphs/images A /Users/mkamp/t2/testtest/vendor/plugins/css\_graphs/images/colorbar.jpg A /Users/mkamp/t2/testtest/vendor/plugins/css\_graphs/init.rb A /Users/mkamp/t2/testtest/vendor/plugins/css\_graphs/lib A /Users/mkamp/t2/testtest/vendor/plugins/css\_graphs/lib/css\_graphs.rb A /Users/mkamp/t2/testtest/vendor/plugins/css\_graphs/MIT-LICENSE A /Users/mkamp/t2/testtest/vendor/plugins/css\_graphs/README Exported revision 18. DC:~/t2/testtest mkamp$ ls public/images/ rails.png Is there no predefined way of doing this? And if not, what to do? I started out using install.rb and just copy things over by hand. To test the general procedure I put the following in the install.rb: puts IO.read(File.join(directory, ‘README’ )) (I’ve seen that in the Rails Recipe to create your own plugin)… But install.rb seems not to be called. ## – DC:~/t2/testtest mkamp$ script/plugin install svn+ssh://claudia- [und-mariano.net/repos/trunk/in\_place\_edit\_associations](http://und-mariano.net/repos/trunk/in_place_edit_associations) Password: Password: A /Users/mkamp/t2/testtest/vendor/plugins/in\_place\_edit\_associations A /Users/mkamp/t2/testtest/vendor/plugins/in\_place\_edit\_associations/test A /Users/mkamp/t2/testtest/vendor/plugins/in\_place\_edit\_associations/test/in\_place\_edit\_associations\_test.rb A /Users/mkamp/t2/testtest/vendor/plugins/in\_place\_edit\_associations/Rakefile A /Users/mkamp/t2/testtest/vendor/plugins/in\_place\_edit\_associations/init.rb A /Users/mkamp/t2/testtest/vendor/plugins/in\_place\_edit\_associations/tasks A /Users/mkamp/t2/testtest/vendor/plugins/in\_place\_edit\_associations/tasks/in\_place\_edit\_associations\_tasks.rake A /Users/mkamp/t2/testtest/vendor/plugins/in\_place\_edit\_associations/lib A /Users/mkamp/t2/testtest/vendor/plugins/in\_place\_edit\_associations/lib/in\_place\_edit\_associations.rb A /Users/mkamp/t2/testtest/vendor/plugins/in\_place\_edit\_associations/install.rb A /Users/mkamp/t2/testtest/vendor/plugins/in\_place\_edit\_associations/javascripts A /Users/mkamp/t2/testtest/vendor/plugins/in\_place\_edit\_associations/javascripts/in\_place\_select\_editor.js A /Users/mkamp/t2/testtest/vendor/plugins/in\_place\_edit\_associations/README Exported revision 1. DC:~/t2/testtest mkamp$ I am using rails\_edge. Cheers, Mariano ---
**Author:** ![Mariano\_K](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/m/eada6e/32.png) [@Mariano\_K](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Mariano_K)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2006, 7:05pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/rails-plugins-how-to-copy-artefacts-to-the-public-directory/87130/2 "2006-03-25T19:05:49Z")
script/plugin isn’t quite that clever unfortunately. There is another plugin which provides static web assets (javascript/stylesheets) - the UserEngine. In fact, any plugin developed as an engine (that is to say, any plugin that includes an init\_engine.rb file and is running on a system which includes the Engines plugin) can provide static content. Essentially, you just create a ‘public’ folder within your plugin, and its contents are mirrored into the RAILS\_ROOT/public folder being used as the document root by your webserver. I felt it was better to have the files automatically copied into the main public directory rather than try and serve files directly from within the plugin, since each directory that is exposed to the web increases the chance of exposing sensitive parts of your filesystem to the internet. Files are copied across each time your webserver is started (each time environment.rb is loaded, to be precise), and only copied if the source differs from the target. If you want this functionality _now_, simply use the Engines plugin in your application. At some point in the future this type of functionality might make it into the core. - james On 3/25/06, Mariano K. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > providing or even installing plugins. Is that right? > > ## /Users/mkamp/t2/testtest/vendor/plugins/css\_graphs/init.rb > > /Users/mkamp/t2/testtest/vendor/plugins/in\_place\_edit\_associations/test/in\_place\_edit\_associations\_test.rb > A > DC:~/t2/testtest mkamp$ – - J \* ~ ---
**Author:** ![Mariano\_K](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/m/eada6e/32.png) [@Mariano\_K](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Mariano_K)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2006, 8:34pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/rails-plugins-how-to-copy-artefacts-to-the-public-directory/87130/3 "2006-03-25T20:34:57Z")
Hi James, thank you for taking the time to answer. I just finished watching your screencast on Rails Engines. Very impressive. Still, I only have a single file to copy, so I will go for the dumb approach and implement the copy myself. To use Rails Engines would be a bit of an overkill for that particular feature. As I gathered that install.rb doesn’t do anything I will implement the copy in init.rb and copy the file over at every start, like you described. Cheers, Mariano