How to load custom plugins in CakePHP?

I'm writing a poll plugin for a websit开发者_StackOverflow中文版e based on CakePHP. The plugin works good if I access it from its own URL (eg. myapp.com/plugin/controller) but I need to call it from different pages. I would like to include it as a widget in every page.

I'm looking for a method like $myplugin->renderPoll($pollId); but I really didn't find any information about how to instantiate the Polls class. I tried with App::import and ClassRegistry::init with no luck.

Any suggestion ? Thank you

Looks like you are trying to create some sort of Helper to create poll cross views? I would suggest creating a Helper for that particular class. Simply create a helper in plugins/plugin_name/views/helpers/foo.php, and in each controller (or in app_controller.php) that you need it, include the helpers as $helpers = array("PluginName.Foo"); and inside your view, you should be able to use the methods defined in foo.php by calling $foo->renderPoll($pollId).

//app/plugins/plugin_name/views/helpers/foo.php
class FooHelper extends AppHelper {
    var $name = "Foo";

    function renderPoll($id=0) {
        //...
    }
}

Use Elements! They're small blocks of presentation code that need to be repeated from page to page, sometimes in different places in the layout.

Check this link out: http://book.cakephp.org/view/1081/Elements

I guess this link explains everything you need.