From: Zed Shaw <zedshaw@...>
Date: 2006-03-06T15:22:47+09:00
Subject: [ANN] GemPlugin 0.1 -- A Mongrel Spinoff

Hello folks,

Well I spent the weekend working on the Mongrel
(http://mongrel.rubyforge.org) plugin system, and actually ended up cracking
it out into a separate sub-project and releasing it under Ruby or LGPL.

The GemPlugin project is a dynamic plugin system that uses RubyGems to
create, manage, and load plugins.  It's used in Mongrel to allow others to
create commands for people to use without having to be a part of the Mongrel
project.  Other systems could use it no problem and it doesn't depend on any
Mongrel code.

The stuff is kind of funky, but take a look at:

http://mongrel.rubyforge.org/gem_plugin_rdoc/

For more information.

== Quick Usage

Plugin Authors do this:

 class Snazzy < GemPlugin::Plugin "/commands"
    ...
 end

Then place this code in a file they will have RubyGems autorequire (I use
lib/init.rb).

Next they need to add the following to whatever Rakefile code you use to
create your gem:

 spec.add_dependency('gem_plugin', '>= 0.1')
 spec.add_dependency('theapp', '>= 0.1')
 spec.autorequire = 'init.rb'


Plugin Users do this:

 $ gem install snazzy_plugin


System Implementers then setup their system to do this:

 GemPlugin::Manager.instance.load "theapp" => GemPlugin::INCLUDE
 plug = GemPlugin::Manager.instance.create("/commands/snazzy")

And everyone is happy.  Read the docs for more information.

== Future Directions

There is already a sample plugin available named mongrel_status which people
can check out as an example:

  http://rubyforge.org/frs/download.php/9029/mongrel_status-0.1.tgz

Or just:

  $ gem install mongrel_status

Enjoy!  And feedback is welcome.

Zed A. Shaw
http://www.zedshaw.com/