i am not talking about rubygems.
Is there a gem that can help setup a framework that can allow a rails app to have a plugin architecture similar to what wordpress has? I basically want to be able to activate and deactivate plugins. What I would like is the wordpress plugin architecture or something like it. Am not sure if there is a gem for it or what to search for. “plugins” doesn’t work to well as a search feature and it seems like everything I get form that deals with ruby gems.
Rails has the notion of plugins built into the framework, but conceptually, they’re very different than what WP people are used to. Essentially you can think of them as a Rails-specific alternative to Rubygems in that they provide additional functionality that the developer can incorporate into his application. This can include changes in base framework behavior and application views, but it might also be just an extension mechanism.
Management of Rails plugins is done on the command line; there’s no graphical interface like the plugin screen used by WP Admin because generally (though not necessarily) you need to also make changes to your code in order to take advantage of installed plugins.
Your best bet would probably be to check out how Spree (e-commerce) and Radiant (CMS) implement that sort of thing. I'm not sure if there's a separate bit for doing this, but if there is it's likely to have been split out of one of those...
--Matt Jones