ruby-on-railsruby-on-rails-3rubygemsactionview

How do I extract Rails view helpers into a gem?


I have a set of rails view helpers that I use regularly, and would like to package them up into a gem, such that I could just put a line in my Gemfile, and have the helpers accessible from my views.

I have created gems before using Bundler, and Jeweler, however, I'm not all all clear on how to organize the Rails view helpers in a gem, and include them into rails.

I would appreciate any pointers, or links to up-to-date tutorials on how to do this for Rails 3

Thanks

Just to clarify: The question isn't on "how to create a gem". Its "how to package view helpers in a gem, so I can use them in Rails"

Edit 2: I also agree with the poster below.. A rails engine is waay too much overkill for this kind of (hopefully simple) requirement


Solution

  • In my opinion, a full Engine is overkill for this task. You could instead just create a Railtie which includes your helpers into ActionView::Base when it initializes.

    # lib/my_gem/view_helpers.rb
    module MyGem
      module ViewHelpers
        def pre(text)
          content_tag :pre, text
        end
    
        def another_helper
          # super secret stuff
        end
      end
    end
    
    # lib/my_gem/railtie.rb
    require 'my_gem/view_helpers'
    module MyGem
      class Railtie < Rails::Railtie
        initializer "my_gem.view_helpers" do
          ActiveSupport.on_load(:action_view) { include MyGem::ViewHelpers }
        end
      end
    end
    
    # lib/my_gem.rb
    require 'my_gem/railtie' if defined?(Rails)