has_messages demonstrates a reference implementation for sending messages between users.

API

• rdoc.info/github/pluginaweek/has_messages/master/frames

Bugs

• github.com/pluginaweek/has_messages/issues

Development

• github.com/pluginaweek/has_messages

Testing

• travis-ci.org/pluginaweek/has_messages

Source

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

Mailing List

• groups.google.com/group/pluginaweek-talk

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.

has_messages requires additional database tables to work. You can generate a migration for these tables like so:

script/generate has_messages

Then simply migrate your database:

rake db:migrate

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.

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

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

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

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

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

• plugin_test_helper

To run against a specific version of Rails:

rake test RAILS_FRAMEWORK_ROOT=/path/to/rails

• Rails 2.3 or later

• state_machine