= Settings Gem

This is imporved from rails-settings, added caching for all settings.
Settings is a plugin that makes managing a table of global key, value pairs easy.
Think of it like a global Hash stored in you database, that uses simple ActiveRecord
like methods for manipulation.  Keep track of any global setting that you dont want
to hard code into your rails app.  You can store any kind of object.  Strings, numbers,
arrays, or any object. Ported to Rails 3!


== Setup

Edit your Gemfile:
  gem "rails-settings-cached"
  
Generate your settings:
  rails g settings <settings_name>

Now just put that migration in the database with:
  rake db:migrate


== Usage
  
You need create a class in app/models/setting.rb :
  
  # app/models/setting.rb
  # extension RailsSettings::CachedSettings
  class Setting < RailsSettings::CachedSettings  
  end

The syntax is easy.  First, lets create some settings to keep track of:

  Setting.admin_password = 'supersecret'
  Setting.date_format    = '%m %d, %Y'
  Setting.cocktails      = ['Martini', 'Screwdriver', 'White Russian']
  Setting.foo            = 123
  Setting.credentials    = { :username => 'tom', :password => 'secret' }

Now lets read them back:

  Setting.foo            # returns 123

Changing an existing setting is the same as creating a new setting:

  Setting.foo = 'super duper bar'

For changing an existing setting which is a Hash, you can merge new values with existing ones:
  Setting.merge! :credentials, :password => 'topsecret'
  Setting.credentials    # returns { :username => 'tom', :password => 'topsecret' }

Decide you dont want to track a particular setting anymore?

  Setting.destroy :foo
  Setting.foo            # returns nil

Want a list of all the settings?

  Setting.all            # returns {'admin_password' => 'super_secret', 'date_format' => '%m %d, %Y'}

You need name spaces and want a list of settings for a give name space? Just choose your prefered named space delimiter and use Settings.all like this:

  Setting['preferences.color'] = :blue
  Setting['preferences.size'] = :large
  Setting['license.key'] = 'ABC-DEF'
  Setting.all('preferences.')   # returns { 'preferences.color' => :blue, 'preferences.size' => :large }

Set defaults for certain settings of your app.  This will cause the defined settings to return with the
Specified value even if they are not in the database.  Make a new file in config/initializers/default_settings.rb
with the following:

  Setting.defaults[:some_setting] = 'footastic'
  
Now even if the database is completely empty, you app will have some intelligent defaults:

  Setting.some_setting   # returns 'footastic'

Settings may be bound to any existing ActiveRecord object. Define this association like this:
Notice! has_settings is not do caching in this version.
  
  class User < ActiveRecord::Base
    has_settings
  end

Then you can set/get a setting for a given user instance just by doing this:

  user = User.find(123)
  user.settings.color = :red
  user.settings.color # returns :red
  user.settings.all # { "color" => :red }

I you want to find users having or not having some settings, there are named scopes for this:

  User.with_settings # => returns a scope of users having any setting
  User.with_settings_for('color') # => returns a scope of users having a 'color' setting
  
  User.without_settings # returns a scope of users having no setting at all (means user.settings.all == {})
  User.without_settings('color') # returns a scope of users having no 'color' setting (means user.settings.color == nil)

That's all there is to it! Enjoy!