How to add helpers, controllers, models, and views of your plugin into the Rails loadpath

Sometimes, when you're writing a plugin, you end up writing models,
helpers, and controllers that the main app can use.  However, you
don't want to copy it into the main app all the time.  You'd like to
keep things separate between the plugin, but you'd like to be able to
include it in the path of the main app.

To do this, put the following in your init.rb file in the root
of your plugin.  To add a new view path in your plugin that's at
PLUGIN_ROOT/lib/views (where PLUGIN_ROOT is the root directory of your
plugin):

   ActionController::Base.append_view_path(File.join(PLUGIN_ROOT, "lib", "views"))
 

Any template files (like html.erb) that you put in that path will be
seen in your app.

To add new helper, model, or controller directories in the rails load path:

 %w{ helpers model controller }.each do |dir|
   path = File.join(PLUGIN_ROOT, 'lib', dir)
   $LOAD_PATH << path
   Dependencies.load_paths << path
   Dependencies.load_once_paths.delete(path)
 end
 

And now, any models you put in lib/model, lib/controller, and
lib/helpers will be in the rails load path.

Of course, this might all be moot with the reintroduction of Rails
engines in 2.3.  I haven't gotten around to using them or figuring it
out yet, but for now, this is how you do it with plugins.  tip!

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