dialog_messages V 0.1
=====================
This plugin allows users of your application to exchange private messages. Beside the basic infrastructure of models it
provides a inbox and a dialog like messages presentation as know from ichat or the iphone sms app, including endless scrolling.

Installation
============

Get the plugin with script/plugin install git://github.com/thilo/dialog_messages.

* Engines
Additionally you need engines >= 1.2. If you don't use it yet here a short installation guide

Install it with script/plugin discover; script/plugin install engines;
Now you have to add the following in your applications environment rb right after your require rails boot.rb file.

require File.join(File.dirname(__FILE__), '../vendor/plugins/engines/boot')

now back to setting up dialog messages.

* Plugin
The plugin require that your application provide a current_user method to get the logged in user. 
If you use acts_as_authenticated it comes for free otherwise you may just create a alias for a similar method.

To use the endless scrolling the plugin need to include a javascript into the views. 
So add <%= yield :head %> inside the layout head.

With script/generate plugin_migration you will get a migration that adds a messages and a dialogs table to your database. 
Don't forget to call rake db:migrate to create these tables.

To add the messaging abilities to the User add acts_as_dialog_peer to your user model.

At last add map.from_plugin 'dialog_messages' to your routes.rb

Now you are ready to roll. 

Usage
=====

To get to the inbox, just provide a link to dialogs_path. 

To sending a message just point a link to list_dialogs_path(:user_id => receiver_id) where receiver_id is the id of the receiving user.

Customization
=============

To customize the inbox you can create your own index.html.erb in your_app/app/views/dialogs to overwrite the template that comes with the plugin.
Same works for all other views that you will find under the appv/iews dir in the plugin.


Open Issues
===========

I still have to find a way to get the controller specs running. 
No test for the acts_as_dialoge_peer module