ControllerSupport

Controller Supports are controller oriented mixins (modules) for Rails that can help you extract behaviour from controllers into shared resources.

Controller Supports lets you extract common behaviour or non-core controller knowledge into it's seperate resource which makes it easier to test and maintain. Some example of ControllerSupports:

• UserSupport - Authentication and current_user
• ErrorSupport - Global error methods and a before filter to catch uncaught exceptions
• EventSupport - Used to load the event resource based on the params[:id]
• LocalizationSupport - Helper methods to build hashes that will be passed to I18n
• MobileSupport - Check if in a mobile session and change the layout

ControllerSupports are just an extension of ActiveSupport::Concern so they supply all of the behaviours that you'd get from ActiveSupport::Concern.
What Controller Supports adds on top of ActiveSupport::Concern is an easier way to define methods as helper_methods and before_filters. It does so in such a way that will enable you to include the support in controllers but also into other objects like test stubs or Mailers.

If you don't know ActiveSupport::Concern there are several links to reading material in the bottom of this README.

Just add the controller_support gem to your Gemfile

	gem 'controller_support'

To define a module as a controller support you just need to extend it with ControllerSupport::Base it can then act as a mixin which you can include into Controllers or any other object.

module UserSupport
	extend ControllerSupport::Base
	
	helper_method :current_user, :user_signed_in
	before_filter :must_be_signed_in
	# ControllerSupport also support after_filter and around_filter
	
	def current_user
		@user ||= User.find(session[:user_id])
	end
	
	def user_signed_in?
		current_user.present?
	end
	
	def must_be_signed_in
		redirect_to sign_up_path unless user_signed_in?
	end
	
end

To use the support just include it in the controller of your choice

class ItemController < ApplicationController
	include UserSupport
	
	skip_before_filter :must_be_signed_in, :only => :new

	def new
		render :inline => "this is just an example"
	end	
	
	def show
		current_user.item.find(params[:id])
	end
end

If you don't know about ActiveSupport::Concern and why it's an awesome thing you should read these stuff

• The official documentation
• Concerning yourself with ActiveSupport::Concern - This blog post covers everything you need to know
• Concerning ActiveSupport::Concern
• Extending ActiveModel via ActiveSupport::Concern
• Trimming the fat from your controllers - A blog post I wrote that led to the creation of this gem.

This project rocks and uses MIT-LICENSE.