# Commontator

Commontator is a Rails engine for comments.
Being an engine means it is fully functional as soon as you install and configure its gem, providing models, views and controllers of its own.
At the same time, almost anything about it can be configured or customized to suit your needs.

## Installation

There are 4 steps you must follow to install commontator:

1. Gem

  Add this line to your application's Gemfile:

  ```ruby
  gem 'commontator', '~> 1.0.0'
  ```

  And then execute:

  ```sh
  $ bundle
  ```

  Or install it yourself as:

  ```sh
  $ gem install commontator
  ```

2. Initializer and Migration

  Run the following command to copy commontator's initializer and migration to your own app:

  ```sh
  $ rake commontator:install
  ```

  And then execute:

  ```sh
  $ rake db:migrate
  ```

  Or run each rake task manually:

  ```sh
  $ rake commontator:install:initializers

  $ rake commontator:install:migrations

  $ rake db:migrate
  ```

3. Configuration

  Change commontator's configurations to suit your needs by editing config/intializers/commontator.rb.

4. Routes

  Add this line to your application's routes file:

  ```ruby
  mount Commontator::Engine => '/commontator'
  ```

  You can change the mount path if you would like a different one.

## Usage

Follow the steps below to add commontator to your models and views:

1. Models

  Add this line to your user model(s) (or any models that should be able to make comments):

  ```ruby
  acts_as_commontator
  ```
    
  Add this line to any models you want to be able to comment on:

  ```ruby
  acts_as_commontable
  ```
    
2. Views

  Add the following line to any erb view where you would like to display comments:

  ```erb
  <%= commontator_thread(commontable) %>
  ```

  Where commontable is an instance of some model that acts_as_commontable.
  Note that model's record must already exist in the database, so do not use this in new.html.erb, _form.html.erb or similar.
  We recommend you use this in the model's show.html.erb.
  When you do this, it is up to you to ensure that the user has the proper permission
  to read the thread or else a SecurityTransgression will be raised.

3. Controllers

  Instead of linking to the thread, you might want to have the thread display right away, when the corresponding view page is loaded.
  If that's the case, add the following to the controller action that displays the view where the thread is located:
  
  ```ruby
  commontator_thread_show(commontable)
  ```

  Note that the above method also checks the current user's read permission on the thread.
  It will raise a SecurityTransgression if the user is not allowed to read the thread.
  You can specify the name of the method that determines which users are allowed to read which threads in the initializer.

That's it! Commontator is now ready for use.

## Browser Support

No incompatibilities are currently known with any of the major browsers.
Currently commontator requires javascript enabled to function properly.

## Customization

Copy commontator's files to your app using any of the following commands:

```sh
$ rake commontator:copy:images
$ rake commontator:copy:stylesheets

$ rake commontator:copy:views
$ rake commontator:copy:mailers
$ rake commontator:copy:helpers

$ rake commontator:copy:controllers
$ rake commontator:copy:models
```

You are now free to modify them and have any changes made manifest in your application.

## Contributing

1. Fork it
2. Create your feature branch (`git checkout -b my-new-feature`)
3. Write tests for your feature
4. Implement your new feature
5. Test your feature (`rake`)
6. Commit your changes (`git commit -am 'Added some feature'`)
7. Push to the branch (`git push origin my-new-feature`)
8. Create new Pull Request

## Development Environment Setup

1. Browse to commontator's spec/dummy folder
2. Use bundler to install all dependencies:

  ```sh
  $ bundle install
  ```

3. Load the schema:

  ```sh
  $ rake db:schema:load
  ```

  Or if the above fails:

  ```sh
  $ bundle exec rake db:schema:load
  ```

## Testing

To run all existing tests for commontator, simply execute the following from the main folder:

```sh
$ rake
```

Or if the above fails:

```sh
$ bundle exec rake
```

## License

This engine is distributed under the terms of the MIT license.
See the MIT-LICENSE file for details.