# When to make a new controller **URL:** \ **Category:** Rails\ **Created:** [May 1, 2006, 10:51pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/when-to-make-a-new-controller/59223 "2006-05-01T22:51:13Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Randal\_S](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/b487fb/32.png) [@Randal\_S](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Randal_S)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2006, 10:51pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/when-to-make-a-new-controller/59223/1 "2006-05-01T22:51:13Z")
Hey all, Ok this is probably a newb question, but I haven’t been programming with MVC for very long, and I’ve been wondering what the general opinion is, or best practices, for making a new controller. Like what cases would you need a new controller for and what cases can you just put everything into one controller? Thanks in advance, Randal ---
**Author:** ![Randal\_S](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/b487fb/32.png) [@Randal\_S](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Randal_S)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2006, 10:57pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/when-to-make-a-new-controller/59223/2 "2006-05-01T22:57:46Z")
Randal, It really depends on your preferences… I tend to design controllers around “units of functionality”. I find that if I have one controller juggling too many models, the code becomes cluttered… For example, I could end up with a blogging controller that has list(), list\_articles() when it could be simply split up amongst 2 controllers: controller1.list(), controller2.list(). The added benefit is that it’s much easier to work with the scaffolding than to fight it… 🙂 Please be advised that I am not an expert in this area ilan Randal S. wrote: > Hey all, > > Ok this is probably a newb question, but I haven’t been programming with > MVC for very long, and I’ve been wondering what the general opinion is, > or best practices, for making a new controller. Like what cases would > you need a new controller for and what cases can you just put everything > into one controller? > > Thanks in advance, > Randal ---
**Author:** ![Randal\_S](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/b487fb/32.png) [@Randal\_S](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Randal_S)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2006, 10:58pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/when-to-make-a-new-controller/59223/3 "2006-05-01T22:58:36Z")
If you’re just starting out, keep it simple and create a separate controller for each use case in your application. Randal S. wrote: > Hey all, > > Ok this is probably a newb question, but I haven’t been programming with > MVC for very long, and I’ve been wondering what the general opinion is, > or best practices, for making a new controller. Like what cases would > you need a new controller for and what cases can you just put everything > into one controller? > > Thanks in advance, > Randal ---
**Author:** ![Randal\_S](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/b487fb/32.png) [@Randal\_S](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Randal_S)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2006, 3:54am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/when-to-make-a-new-controller/59223/4 "2006-05-02T03:54:41Z")
Thanks guys. I’ll keep that in mind! Mick S. wrote: > If you’re just starting out, keep it simple and create a separate > controller for each use case in your application. > > Randal S. wrote: > > > Hey all, > > > > Ok this is probably a newb question, but I haven’t been programming with > > MVC for very long, and I’ve been wondering what the general opinion is, > > or best practices, for making a new controller. Like what cases would > > you need a new controller for and what cases can you just put everything > > into one controller? > > > > Thanks in advance, > > Randal ---
**Author:** ![Randal\_S](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/b487fb/32.png) [@Randal\_S](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Randal_S)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2006, 6:58pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/when-to-make-a-new-controller/59223/5 "2006-05-03T18:58:40Z")
Be careful here… you don’t want to confuse controller’s with their actions. Controllers are a way to group user-focused functionality, but unless you are designing extremely broad use cases, each of your apps controllers will likely impact far more than a single use case. Since people like to use the “blog app” example, I would recommend downloading the Typo source code and looking at how the Controllers and Models are laid out in there. It’s a pretty good balance, with probably a few more controllers than is actually needed (not counting the admin stuff, since admin interfaces are very different from user interfaces), but still a very good organization example. -Brian