How to render a partial in a plugin from a plugin helper

Question

I have a helper in my plugin test_plugin/lib/test_helper.rb:

module TestHelper
  def test_render
    render 'test_plugin/test_partial'
  end
end

I have a partial test_plugin/app/views/test_plugin/_test_partial.html.erb:

<p>Hello World!</p>

In my application app/views/tests/index.html.erb when I do this:

<%= test_render %>

I get the following error:

Missing partial test_plugin/test_partial with {:locale=>[:en, :en], :formats=>[:html], :handlers=>[:rjs, :rhtml, :haml, :builder, :rxml, :erb]} in view paths "/home/####/workspace/my_application/app/views"

Answer 1

The following works for me on Rails 2.3.5 (ie: it searches for this partial in vendor/plugins/test_plugin/app/views/test_plugin):

vendor/plugins/test_plugin/init.rb

require 'test_plugin'

vendor/plugins/test_plugin/lib/test_plugin.rb

require 'test_plugin_helpers'

# Helpers will be available in all controllers
ActionController::Base.send :include, TestPlugin::Helpers

# Helpers will be available in the views
ActionView::Base.send :include, TestPlugin::Helpers

vendor/plugins/test_plugin/lib/test_plugin_helpers.rb

module TestPlugin
  module Helpers
    def test_render
      render 'test_plugin/test_partial'
    end
  end
end

vendor/plugins/test_plugin/app/views/test_plugin/_test_partial.html.erb

Yuppie!

app/views/test.html.erb

<%= test_render %>

Something similar should work also in Rails3.