# Help building plugin that requires overriting ruby controller methods
**URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/help-building-plugin-that-requires-overriting-ruby-controller-methods/259129
**Category:** Development
**Created:** [March 23, 2023, 9:52am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/help-building-plugin-that-requires-overriting-ruby-controller-methods/259129 "2023-03-23T09:52:37Z")
**Posts on this page:** 4
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Pabs](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Pabs)
#### Post date: [March 23, 2023, 9:52am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/help-building-plugin-that-requires-overriting-ruby-controller-methods/259129/1 "2023-03-23T09:52:37Z")
Hi there,
I’m trying to create a plugin that surfaces a checkbox when creating a topic on the UI, and that basically saves a new attribute in the topics table. Basically I need to get the attribute saved whehter the checbox was clicked or not, and then surface the new attrbute when visiting a Topics page.
I started from the backend, adding a migration that creates a new boolean attribute to Topics, defaulted to false and next I was working on the controller. But I haven’t been able to find a way to add the new attribute in the function posts from TopicsController.
I couldnt find anything like this on the tutorials.
Thanks in advance!
```plaintext
after_initialize do
module ::DiscourseXPlugin
class ::TopicsController
def posts
Rails.logger.info '┌────────────┐'
Rails.logger.info '│ Here we go │'
Rails.logger.info '└────────────┘'
end
end
end
end
```
---
### Author:  [@Pabs](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Pabs)
#### Post date: [March 23, 2023, 10:39am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/help-building-plugin-that-requires-overriting-ruby-controller-methods/259129/2 "2023-03-23T10:39:16Z")
An alternative to this, would be to create a new method in the controller, like “posts\_with\_new\_attribute” that is triggered through a new endpoint if the checkbox is clicked, but not sure if that would be more complicated.
---
### Author:  [@pfaffman](https://meta.discourse.org/u/pfaffman)
#### Post date: [March 23, 2023, 4:44pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/help-building-plugin-that-requires-overriting-ruby-controller-methods/259129/3 "2023-03-23T16:44:45Z")
> [@Pabs](#):
>
> that surfaces a checkbox when creating a topic on the UI,
You’ll need to do that with a plugin outlet in the ember front end.
> [@Pabs](#):
>
> that basically saves a new attribute in the topics table
You want to use a TopicCustomField, not change any tables.
> [@Pabs](#):
>
> and then surface the new attrbute when visiting a Topics page.
You’ll want to add the custom field to the topic serializer.
You can look at other plugins that do those things for some examples.
---
### Author:  [@Pabs](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Pabs)
#### Post date: [March 27, 2023, 12:06pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/help-building-plugin-that-requires-overriting-ruby-controller-methods/259129/4 "2023-03-27T12:06:32Z")
That worked! thanks!!