Baking plug-ins

Since CakePHP 1.2beta the bake script supports the generation of plug-ins. This feature is a bit hidden in the current version, as it is not mentioned when you call the help of the bake script:

cake bake help

Anyway, its usage is quite straight-forward. With

cake bake plugin demo

you can generate the structure and the base files for a plug-in with the name “demo”. This actually creates the following structure and files in app/plugins:

demo
  controllers
    components
  models
    behaviors
  views
    helpers
  demo_app_controller.php
  demo_app_model.php

With

cake bake plugin demo controller
cake bake plugin demo model
cake bake plugin demo view

you can bake controllers, models, and views for the “demo” plug-in. The parameters you can use are the same as when baking “normal” controllers, models, and views, for example

cake bake plugin demo controller users

bakes a UsersController with var $scaffold set. See Faster baking of controllers with the bake shell script or Baking views for more details.

One thing you have to be aware of is that the generated controllers and models extend AppController resp. AppModel by default, and not the plug-in-specific versions, i.e. DemoAppController resp. DemoAppModel in the “demo” plug-in example. That means you have to manually change this if you want to make use of the plug-in-specific AppController resp. AppModel.

Happy baking :)