# Rails plugins that use other plugins - why is does this seem impossible? **URL:** \ **Category:** Rails\ **Created:** [January 15, 2008, 4:15am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/rails-plugins-that-use-other-plugins-why-is-does-this-seem-impossible/126060 "2008-01-15T04:15:42Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![goodieboy](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/g/ecc23a/32.png) [@goodieboy](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/goodieboy)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2008, 4:15am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/rails-plugins-that-use-other-plugins-why-is-does-this-seem-impossible/126060/1 "2008-01-15T04:15:42Z")
OK, probably the most frustrated I’ve ever been with Rails. If I don’t figure this out, I’m going to, um… try again tomorrow. I’m simply trying to create a plugin. I did the ./script/generate plugin MY\_NEW\_PLUGIN and wha-hoo great! Well, not really… This plugin uses other plugins. For example, acts\_as\_list, acts\_as\_money etc… How the heck to I get these plugins loaded and ready to be used? I’ve put them here: main-app/vendor/plugins/MY\_NEW\_PLUGIN/vendor/plugins/ I’ve added all of their paths and lib paths to the config.load\_paths variable, I’ve tried loading (require and load) their init.rb files. And no matter what, it’s pretty obvious that the paths aren’t setup correctly. I’ve even tried $: \<\< ‘path/to/acts\_as\_list’ $: \<\< ‘path/to/acts\_as\_list/lib’ I’d like to be able to specify additional load\_paths in init.rb and then use config.plugins - seems logical.? Ahhhhhhoar!!! ---
**Author:** ![goodieboy](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/g/ecc23a/32.png) [@goodieboy](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/goodieboy)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2008, 5:16am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/rails-plugins-that-use-other-plugins-why-is-does-this-seem-impossible/126060/2 "2008-01-15T05:16:28Z")
Hi Ryan, I tried irc, which is totally foreign to me. What is nickserv? Am I supposed to signup for membership? On Jan 14, 10:59 pm, “Ryan B.” [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > perhaps just a require ‘acts\_as\_list’ with a rescue with an error message > will do it, probably. Well, my plugin, will come with acts\_as\_list. So I just want to be able to load it correctly. When my plugins init.rb file is loaded, I’m pretty sure that $LOAD\_PATH is already set. So using config.load\_paths doesn’t seem to do anything. And the same with config.plugin\_paths. ---
**Author:** ![goodieboy](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/g/ecc23a/32.png) [@goodieboy](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/goodieboy)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2008, 5:00am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/rails-plugins-that-use-other-plugins-why-is-does-this-seem-impossible/126060/3 "2008-01-15T05:00:07Z")
perhaps just a require ‘acts\_as\_list’ with a rescue with an error message will do it, probably. There’s most likely a better way to go about it, and why not ask the #rubyonrails irc channel in [irc.freenode.net](http://irc.freenode.net)? Their responses can be more instantaneous than here most times. ---
**Author:** ![goodieboy](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/g/ecc23a/32.png) [@goodieboy](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/goodieboy)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2008, 5:41am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/rails-plugins-that-use-other-plugins-why-is-does-this-seem-impossible/126060/4 "2008-01-15T05:41:01Z")
Oh yeah I should’ve mentioned. You have to have a registered name before you go into the channel so that random people can’t spam it. Just type /msg nickserv help register and follow the instructions. On Jan 15, 2008 2:45 PM, goodieboy [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > Well, my plugin, will come with acts\_as\_list. So I just want to be > able to load it correctly. When my plugins init.rb file is loaded, I’m > pretty sure that $LOAD\_PATH is already set. So using config.load\_paths > doesn’t seem to do anything. And the same with config.plugin\_paths. > > > There’s most likely a better way to go about it, and > > why not ask the #rubyonrails irc channel in [irc.freenode.net](http://irc.freenode.net)? Their > > responses can be more instantaneous than here most times. – Ryan B. > **[frozenplague.net](http://www.frozenplague.net)** > > This domain may be for sale! Feel free to add me to MSN and/or GTalk as this email. ---
**Author:** ![goodieboy](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/g/ecc23a/32.png) [@goodieboy](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/goodieboy)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2008, 6:48am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/rails-plugins-that-use-other-plugins-why-is-does-this-seem-impossible/126060/5 "2008-01-15T06:48:47Z")
Cool, thank you 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![goodieboy](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/g/ecc23a/32.png) [@goodieboy](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/goodieboy)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2008, 9:49am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/rails-plugins-that-use-other-plugins-why-is-does-this-seem-impossible/126060/6 "2008-01-15T09:49:02Z")
Is this rails 1.2 or rails 2.0? Quite a bit changed about plugin loading in between. Fred ---
**Author:** ![goodieboy](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/g/ecc23a/32.png) [@goodieboy](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/goodieboy)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2008, 3:27pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/rails-plugins-that-use-other-plugins-why-is-does-this-seem-impossible/126060/7 "2008-01-15T15:27:53Z")
Rails 2.0.2 I found a way to make it all work - not the correct, Rails way though. It’s not what I would have expected. I thought I could do everything I needed inside of the init.rb file. But from the way it seems, at that point it’s too late to add to the $LOAD\_PATH so adding plugins to config.plugins inside of init.rb doesn’t work. Or am I wrong? I tried many different things. I’ll come clean now; this plugin is really another Rails app. it has controllers, models, views, routes etc… I wanted to be able to reuse this inside of client apps. And maintain only one code base for the “plugin” (updatable via svn etc.) I wanted it to work like Django apps do. And I achieved a lot of that by initializing my plugin inside of the Rails::Initialize.run block: Rails::Initialize.run do |config| MySuperPluginThatsReallyAnApp::init(config) end Basically, I add a bunch of paths (load\_paths and load\_once\_paths), include my plugins etc… Now I can use that one line in my main apps’ environment.rb file, and without doing anything have a full blown app running without doing any extra coding. And thanks to the load paths, I can override any view, model etc… just by creating the file in the app that’s using the “plugin”. Very handy. I have to manually copy routes, and public folder items, but that’s OK. I want to be able to override those aspects anyway. The big downside is that I can’t do cool, builtin things with Rake, and testing. So I’m going to keep trying to get this to work the correct, Rails 2.0 plugin way. Feedback anyone? On Jan 15, 3:48 am, Frederick C. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid)