pluginaweek-has_messages

= has_messages

+has_messages+ demonstrates a reference implementation for sending messages between users.

== Resources

API

• http://api.pluginaweek.org/has_messages

Bugs

• http://pluginaweek.lighthouseapp.com/projects/13274-has_messages

Development

• http://github.com/pluginaweek/has_messages

Source

• git://github.com/pluginaweek/has_messages.git

== Description

Messaging between users is fairly common in web applications, especially those that support social networking. Messaging doesn't necessarily need to be between users, but can also act as a way for the web application to send notices and other notifications to users.

Designing and building a framework that supports this can be complex and takes away from the business focus. This plugin can help ease that process by demonstrating a reference implementation of these features.

== Usage

=== Adding message support

class User < ActiveRecord::Base has_messages end

This will build the following associations:

• +messages+
• +unsent_messages+
• +sent_messages+
• +received_messages+

If you have more specific needs, you can create the same associations manually that +has_messages+ builds. See HasMessages::MacroMethods#has_messages for more information about the asssociations that are generated from this macro.

=== Creating new messages

message = user.messages.build message.to user1, user2 message.subject = 'Hey!' message.body = 'Does anyone want to go out tonight?' message.deliver

=== Replying to messages

reply = message.reply_to_all reply.body = "I'd love to go out!" reply.deliver

=== Forwarding messages

forward = message.forward forward.body = 'Interested?' forward.deliver

=== Processing messages asynchronously

In addition to delivering messages immediately, you can also queue messages so that an external application processes and delivers them. This is especially useful for messages that need to be sent outside of the confines of the application.

To queue messages for external processing, you can use the +queue+ event, rather than +deliver+. This will indicate to any external processes that the message is ready to be sent.

To process queued emails, you need an external cron job that checks and sends them like so:

Message.with_state('queued').each do |message| message.deliver end

== Testing

Before you can run any tests, the following gem must be installed:

• plugin_test_helper[http://github.com/pluginaweek/plugin_test_helper]

To run against a specific version of Rails:

rake test RAILS_FRAMEWORK_ROOT=/path/to/rails

== Dependencies

• Rails 2.3 or later
• state_machine[http://github.com/pluginaweek/state_machine]