Rails - Jul 2006 - better way to include helpers into application controller/test_helper?

Right now, I have the following in my application controller - and a
simliar version is duplicated in test_helper.  There must be a better
way to include common functionality like this that gets used across
layers?  Maybe at the very least a way to include it at the class
level and instance level with one line?

  # provide access to text helper at class level
  def self.text_helper
    Helper.instance
  end

# instance level
  def text_helper
    Helper.instance
  end

# include text_helper as singleton
  class Helper
    include Singleton
    include ActionView::Helpers::TextHelper
  end

- Rob


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