Settings Plugin

Settings is a plugin that makes managing a table of global key, value pairs easy. Think of it like a global Hash stored in you database, that uses simple ActiveRecord like methods for manipulation. Keep track of any global setting that you dont want to hard code into your rails app. You can store any kind of object. Strings, numbers, arrays, or any object.

Installation

Install the rails-settings gem

  gem install rails-settings

And include the gem in your apps config

  config.gem 'rails-settings', :lib => 'settings'

Or install as a plugin if you must. But gems are cooler.

  ./script/plugin install git://github.com/Squeegy/rails-settings.git

Setup

You must create the table used by the Settings model. Simply run this command:

  ruby script/generate settings_migration

Now just put that migration in the database with:

  rake db:migrate

Usage

The syntax is easy. First, lets create some settings to keep track of:

  Settings.admin_password = 'supersecret'
  Settings.date_format    = '%m %d, %Y'
  Settings.cocktails      = ['Martini', 'Screwdriver', 'White Russian']
  Settings.foo            = 123

Now lets read them back:

  Settings.foo            # returns 123

Changing an existing setting is the same as creating a new setting:

  Settings.foo = 'super duper bar'

Decide you dont want to track a particular setting anymore?

  Settings.destroy :foo
  Settings.foo            # returns nil

Want a list of all the settings?

  Settings.all            # returns {'admin_password' => 'super_secret', 'date_format' => '%m %d, %Y'}

Set defaults for certain settings of your app. This will cause the defined settings to return with the Specified value even if they are not in the database. Make a new file in config/initializers/settings.rb with the following:

  Settings.defaults[:some_setting] = 'footastic'

Now even if the database is completely empty, you app will have some intelligent defaults:

  Settings.some_setting   # returns 'footastic'

That’s all there is to it!. Enjoy!