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ShinyCMS Developer Documentation

Supporting code: helpers

Most of the helpers provide formatters, presentation logic, or wrappers around common uses of a model from a view (adding some much-needed isolation/abstraction in this last case).

Hopefully they will make it easier for people to build themes even if they're not hugely familiar with ActiveRecord). For example, this code using a helper: <% posts = recent_blog_posts( 5 ) %> returns the same results as this code using a model: <% posts = ShinyBlog::Post.readonly.recent.limit( 5 ) %>

From core plugin

  • MainSiteHelper - no code, but includes all the helpers below that are useful on the main site

  • AdminAreaHelper - helper methods for admin area views and controllers

  • PluginsHelper - the plugin_loaded? method

  • DatesHelper - turn DateTime objects into human-readable dates and times

  • DiscussionsHelper - methods to get discussion settings and fetch recent comments
  • ElementsHelper - the element_types method, for populating drop-down menu
  • FeatureFlagsHelper - the feature_enabled? method
  • PagingHelper - methods to help with pagination
  • SiteNameHelper - the site_name method

  • UsersHelper - provides user-capability checks and profile link generation

  • AkismetHelper - methods related to the Akismet spam-flagging service

  • RecaptchaHelper - methods related to Google's reCAPTCHA bot detection service

From feature plugins

Methods defined in feature plugin helpers called MainSiteHelper are automatically loaded and made available to views throughout the entire CMS.

  • ShinyBlog::MainSiteHelper - get most recent published posts, for use in sidebars etc

  • ShinyForms::MainSiteHelper - look up a form by slug

  • ShinyInserts::MainSiteHelper - get the content for an insert element, or check its type

  • ShinyLists::MainSiteHelper - look up a mailing list by slug (or fall back to most recent list)

  • ShinyNews::MainSiteHelper - get most recent published posts, for use in sidebars etc

  • ShinyPages::MainSiteHelper - page and page sections (default_page, default_section, etc)

  • ShinyProfiles::MainSiteHelper - find plugins with user-content partials to include on profile pages

  • ShinySearch::MainSiteHelper - check which search backends are enabled, and related methods