Rails - Jul 2009 - Problem loading plugin that depends on another plugin

I am trying to extract some code I have written into a plugin (an
engine actually, since I want to share the views to new apps). I
really like the organization I see in the new Clearance engine - esp
with respect to how they organize testing of the engine + testing the
integration of the engine into your app (http://
giantrobots.thoughtbot.com/2009/4/22/clearance-is-a-rails-engine). So
I have been following their method of creating modules and then
including those modules into models so that things are well set up for
overriding in the enclosing app. This was going well for the first
couple models - and then I tried to convert my photo model that
depends on attachment_fu.

module Experts
  module Photo

    def self.included(model)
      # model.send(:include,
ClassMethods)
      model.send(:include, Callbacks)
      model.send(:include, Relationships)
      model.send(:include, Validations)
    end

    module CallBacks
      has_attachment :storage => :file_system, :path_prefix =>
''public/
photos'',
                     :content_type => :image,
                     :min_size => 1.kilobyte, :max_size => 3.megabyte,
                     :thumbnails => {:thumbnail =>
''x100>''}
    end
...
  end
end

The server will not start. Initially this complained

vendor/plugins/experts/lib/experts/photo.rb:15: undefined method
`has_attachment'' for Experts::Photo::CallBacks:Module (NoMethodError)

So I changed the file that is called when my experts plugin is
initialized to include methods from the attachment_fu plugin.

require ''technoweenie/attachment_fu''
include Technoweenie::AttachmentFu::ActMethods

This changed the error  to:

vendor/plugins/attachment_fu/lib/technoweenie/attachment_fu.rb:180:in
`extended'': undefined method `class_inheritable_accessor'' for
Experts::Photo::CallBacks:Module (NoMethodError)

Following this back, class_inheritable_accessor is a Rails extension
to Class from activesupport/lib/active_support/core_ext/class/
inheritable_attributes.rb

I am a little stumped at how to make sure those methods are available
when my plugin is loaded. Attachment_fu loads just fine without
explicitly requiring active_support (though I do see that the
CoreImage stuff in its vendor directory does have a "require
''active_support''" line.) But I tried adding that to my
initialization
file just to see; it did not help.

The default plugin load order says it is alphabetical, so
attachment_fu should be loaded before experts. Specifying the load
order using config.plugins in the enclosing app does not help.

The bottom line is I don''t understand plugin loading. Can someone give
me some pointers? The part I find most puzzling is why attachment_fu
loads when used in an app but my plugin that depends on it can''t.

On Jul 30, 4:21 pm, cnk
<cynthia.ki...-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w@public.gmane.org>
wrote:
> module Experts
>   module Photo
>
>     def self.included(model)
>       # model.send(:include,
> ClassMethods)
>       model.send(:include, Callbacks)
>       model.send(:include, Relationships)
>       model.send(:include, Validations)
>     end
>
>     module CallBacks
>       has_attachment :storage => :file_system, :path_prefix =>
''public/
> photos'',
>                      :content_type => :image,
>                      :min_size => 1.kilobyte, :max_size =>
3.megabyte,
>                      :thumbnails => {:thumbnail =>
''x100>''}
>     end
> ...
>   end
> end
>
> The server will not start. Initially this complained
>
> vendor/plugins/experts/lib/experts/photo.rb:15: undefined method
> `has_attachment'' for Experts::Photo::CallBacks:Module
(NoMethodError)
>
> So I changed the file that is called when my experts plugin is
> initialized to include methods from the attachment_fu plugin.
>

> The bottom line is I don''t understand plugin loading. Can someone
give
> me some pointers? The part I find most puzzling is why attachment_fu
> loads when used in an app but my plugin that depends on it can''t.
plugin loading is a red herring here. The problem is that
has_attachment is being called on the Experts::Photo::CallBacks module
rather than on an activerecord class. You need to be doing this call
from your self.included callback

Fred

On Jul 30, 1:57 pm, Frederick Cheung
<frederick.che...-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w@public.gmane.org>
wrote:
> plugin loading is a red herring here. The problem is that
> has_attachment is being called on the Experts::Photo::CallBacks module
> rather than on an activerecord class. You need to be doing this call
> from your self.included callback
I don''t know that I would call it a red herring - more like a symptom
of not really understanding how to stitch things together. If I
understand you correctly, has_attachment can''t be a module callback.
It almost isn''t a part of the module at all. Rather it is something
the module needs to add to the AR-derived class that is including my
module. Yes?

Oh now I see - I had just parked code into the module - not within a
method. Dho!

With Fred''s pointer and some experimentation, I now have files
uploading from my plugin code. The has_attachment code actually needed
to go into ClassMethods, like so:

    module ClassMethods
      def self.included(model)
        model.class_eval do
          has_attachment :storage => :file_system, :path_prefix =>
''public/photos'',
                         :content_type => :image,
                         :min_size => 1.kilobyte, :max_size =>
3.megabyte,
                         :thumbnails => {:thumbnail =>
''x100>''}
        end
      end
    end

Have a couple more things to play with - and then I need to see if I
can use has_many_polymorphs within my included modules.

Thanks Fred!