If you’re building a Ruby on Rails application and are in need of some forums functionality, you’ve most likely have looked into Beast. However, Beast is very limited in functionality (which I actually think is a good thing), so you might find yourself needing to extend Beast to do the things you want.

Fortunately, Beast has a plugin feature that will easily allow you to do this. In this post, I’ll cover how you would do this, using my StyleEditor plugin as an example.

The Plugin File Structure

First, let’s cover plugin file structure. This is what my StyleEditor plugin looks like:

Here are the important points to note:

• app: The directory structure of this directory should follow the same conventions as the main Rails app/ directory. Code located in this directory follow the same class loading (and reloading) rules as the main app/ directory.
• lib/beast/plugins/style_editor.rb: This is the plugin class, where all the magic happens. The name of the file should be the tableized version of the plugin’s actual class name. The plugin class file must be located in beast/plugins, or else Rails will not be able to find it.

The Plugin Class

Here’s what’s the plugin class should look like:

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module Beast
  module Plugins
    class StyleEditor < Beast::Plugin
      author 'Calvin Yu - boardista.com'
      version '0001'
      homepage 'http://boardista.com'
      notes 'Style Editing Support'

      %w( controllers helpers models ).each do |dir|
        path = File.join(plugin_path, 'app', dir)
        Dependencies.load_paths &lt;&lt; File.expand_path(path) if File.exist?(path)
      end

      def initialize
        super
        ApplicationController.prepend_view_path File.join(StyleEditor::plugin_path, 'app', 'views')
        # Patch Beast code here.
      end

      def install
        super
        # Run any install processes here.
      end
    end # end StyleEditor class
  end # end Plugins module
end # end Beast module

You can see what the final source looks like here. Here are some things to note about this class:

• The author, version, homepage, and notes methods provide some meta information for the plugin.
• The Dependencies.load_paths call will configure the sub-directories under app/ so that they’ll be dynamically loaded by Rail’s dependency resolution process.
• The ApplicationController.prepend_view_path call will prepend this plugin’s view path ahead of the normal Rails view path and any other view paths configured by other plugins loaded before it. This is important to remember if views aren’t being rendered like you’re expecting them to.
• Any changes to existing Rails or Beast controllers, models, etc. should go into initialize, in the form of monkey patches and mixins.
• Any installation tasks, such as file copy, should go into the install method.

Adding New Routes

I needed to create some new routes for my StylesController, so I used the route method of the Beast::Plugin class to install them:

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# add this within the class scope of the StyleEditor
route :resources, 'styles'

I’m using the RESTful syntax to creating routes here, but you can also use :connect and named routes as well.

Updating the Beast Schema

To update the Beast Schema, all I needed to do is to create a Schema class within the scope of your plugin class:

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class Schema < ActiveRecord::Migration
  def self.install
    create_table :style_options do |t|
      t.string :name
      t.string :value
      t.integer :style_id
    end

    create_table :styles do |t|
      t.string :name
      t.string :template_name
      t.boolean :active
      t.timestamps
    end
  end

  def self.uninstall
    drop_table :styles
    drop_table :style_options
  end
end # end Schema class

The code in install/uninstall methods will work just like the up/down methods in a typical migration class. There is an issue where there’s no support for handling db changes overtime – hopefully someone will find a nice way to handle this (any takers?).

Using the Rails Console

At some point, you’ll want to do some quick tests to make sure your plugin changes are working as you expect them to, and try to test them from the console. If you have tried to this already, you’ll quickly find that your changes for some reason won’t work. Don’t fret, the reason why it doesn’t work is because the plugins aren’t initialize until the Dispatcher receives its first request. So, if you do want to test your changes in the console, you’ll need to run this command first:

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Dispatcher.send :prepare_application

Installing a Plugin

Once you’re done with your plugin, you’ll need to install it. This step is pretty easy. First, install your beast plugins into vendor/beast, then run the plugin install method:

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script/runner 'Beast::Plugins::StyleEditor.install'

Some plugins might have some additional installation instructions, so I would suggest looking at the README file (and if you’re developing on a plugin, make sure to put your install instructions in the README).

That’s It!

It’s important to note that Beast plugin system is an evolving system, and the steps I laid out here are what worked best for me through the process of trial an error. I’d love to hear what conclusions others have come to in their plugin development exploits. If you want to get a better feel of what an actual Beast plugin looks like, you can check out the plugins that I’ve developed at http://svn.codeeg.com/beast. If you want to see what those plugins look like in action, you can check them out on Boardista.com.

For Monday, September 3 2007 –

• 

  Seth’s Blog: Labor Day

  "It’s the people having difficult conversations, inventing remarkable products, and pushing the envelope (and, perhaps, still going home at 5 PM) who are building a recession-proof future for themselves."

  Tag(s): business career

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I finally took the time yesterday to roll out a new blog design, as well as upgrade to the latest and greatest version of WordPress.  The theme is derived from Derek Powazek’s DePo Clean theme, which I chose for its clean and minimalist design.  The new theme also gave me the opportunity to highlight some of the projects I’m working on, which I’ll be posting about in the future.

For Saturday, September 1 2007 –

• 

  Futuristic Play by Andrew Chen: Are people like lab rats? Using reward schedules to drive engagement

  "How do you think about your site as a series of action/responses that span over time, not a collection of features?"

  Tag(s): webdesign rewards

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For Tuesday, July 24 2007 –

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  IT’s Star Turn

  The information technology departments once seen as back-room cost centers are becoming key players in the execution of innovation, and hence, the creation of value in the new marketplace.

  Tag(s):

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For Wednesday, July 18 2007 –

• 

  Businesspundit: From a ‘C’ to an ‘A’ - Can Your Managers Do What This Professor Did?

  "This is relevant to business because managers, like college professors, often want to wield their power more than they want to search for the truth. Bosses don’t tolerate dissension, and instead reward sycophants while punishing dissenters."

  Tag(s): management

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I was reading Founders at Work, and found this great quote by Philip Greenspun:

To my mind, a programmer is not an engineer, because an engineer is somebody who starts with a social problem that an organization or a society has and says, “OK, here’s this problem that we have– how can we solve it?” … That’s engineering. If you look at civil engineers, architects, they’re all dealing directly with the customer and going through the whole process.

It’s hard to describe it any better than that.

For Thursday, July 5 2007 –

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  Feld Thoughts - Another View on Vertical Social Networks

  Good thread discussing the viability of Vertical Social Networks.

  Tag(s):

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I signed onto Facebook this morning and was surprised to found that I had reached a major milestone in my bookmarking activity without even knowing it.

We stopped by the Apple store at Northpoint today to drop off Amanda’s MacBook for some repair work, and picked up an iPhone for Amanda in the process. I spoke with one of the guys at the store and he said they sold about 700 yesterday, and from the looks of it they still seem to have plenty more (they still had some 8GB’s as well). The store was busy, but we were still able to just walk up and buy one without waiting in line.

And though it seems like some people are having problems activating, we had no problems whatsoever (granted we’re already with AT&T). The phone is a way cool, and I’ll probably buy one myself once my phone goes south.