vendor/rails/railties/doc/guides/source/creating_plugins/index.txt

   1 The Basics of Creating Rails Plugins
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   3
   4 A Rails plugin is either an extension or a modification of the core framework. Plugins provide:
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   6  * a way for developers to share bleeding-edge ideas without hurting the stable code base
   7  * a segmented architecture so that units of code can be fixed or updated on their own release schedule
   8  * an outlet for the core developers so that they don’t have to include every cool new feature under the sun
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  10 After reading this guide you should be familiar with:
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  12  * Creating a plugin from scratch
  13  * Writing and running tests for the plugin
  14  * Storing models, views, controllers, helpers and even other plugins in your plugins
  15  * Writing generators
  16  * Writing custom Rake tasks in your plugin
  17  * Generating RDoc documentation for your plugin
  18  * Avoiding common pitfalls with 'init.rb'
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  20 This guide describes how to build a test-driven plugin that will:
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  22  * Extend core ruby classes like Hash and String
  23  * Add methods to ActiveRecord::Base in the tradition of the 'acts_as' plugins
  24  * Add a view helper that can be used in erb templates
  25  * Add a new generator that will generate a migration
  26  * Add a custom generator command
  27  * A custom route method that can be used in routes.rb
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  29 For the purpose of this guide pretend for a moment that you are an avid bird watcher.  Your favorite bird is the Yaffle, and you want to create a plugin that allows other developers to share in the Yaffle goodness.  First, you need to get setup for development.
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  31
  32 include::test_setup.txt[]
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  34 include::core_ext.txt[]
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  36 include::acts_as_yaffle.txt[]
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  38 include::migration_generator.txt[]
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  40 include::generator_method.txt[]
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  42 include::models.txt[]
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  44 include::controllers.txt[]
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  46 include::helpers.txt[]
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  48 include::custom_route.txt[]
  49
  50 include::odds_and_ends.txt[]
  51
  52 include::appendix.txt[]