title: Widget Data Across Multiple Controllers
body: <p>Let's say that I have a widget that displays summary information about how many posts or comments that I have on a site.</p>
  
  <p>What's the cleanest way to persist this information across controllers? </p>
  
  <p>Including the instance variables in the application controller seems like a bad idea. Having a before filter that loads the data for each controller smells like code duplication. </p>
  
  <p>Do I have to use a plugin like the Cells Plugin (<a href="http://cells.rubyforge.org/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">http://cells.rubyforge.org/</a>) or is there a simpler way of doing it?</p>