Welcome to The Cookbook

As a working example, let's create a new plugin that orders pizza for you. To start out, we'll need to place our plugin files inside the /app/plugins folder. The name of the parent folder for all the plugin files is important, and will be used in many places, so pick wisely. For this plugin, let's use the name 'pizza'. This is how the setup will eventually look:

/app
     /plugins
         /pizza
             /controllers                <- plugin controllers go    here
             /models                     <- plugin models go    here
             /views                      <- plugin views go    here
             /pizza_app_controller.php   <- plugin's AppController
             /pizza_app_model.php        <- plugin's AppModel 

If you want to be able to access your plugin with a URL, defining an AppController and AppModel for a plugin is required. These two special classes are named after the plugin, and extend the parent application's AppController and AppModel. Here's what they should look like for our pizza example:

// /app/plugins/pizza/pizza_app_controller.php:
<?php
class PizzaAppController extends AppController {
     //...
}
?>

1. // /app/plugins/pizza/pizza_app_controller.php:
2. <?php
3. class PizzaAppController extends AppController {
4. //...
5. }
6. ?>

// /app/plugins/pizza/pizza_app_model.php:
<?php
class PizzaAppModel extends AppModel {
       //...
}
?>

1. // /app/plugins/pizza/pizza_app_model.php:
2. <?php
3. class PizzaAppModel extends AppModel {
4. //...
5. }
6. ?>

If you forgot to define these special classes, CakePHP will hand you "Missing Controller" errors until you’ve done so.