title: Loading CakePHP Helpers
body: <p>This is a multi part question.</p>
  
  <p><strong>Background:</strong></p>
  
  <p>I'm building my first site using CakePHP, and I like it so far.  I've got a DB setup, initial data loaded, and a few models, views, and controllers to interface with the data.</p>
  
  <p>I've created a globally accessible function to create Add/Edit/Delete type image links in various areas.  It will be used across multiple views, so I need it accessible, essentially, everywhere.  The function is defined in <code>/app/config/bootstrap.php</code>. I was hoping to use the HTML Helper's <code>$html-&gt;image()</code> and <code>$html-&gt;link()</code> methods to facilitate this, but they're not available in <code>bootstrap.php</code> and I'm not sure how to load/access the HTML Helper where I've defined my function.</p>
  
  <p><strong>Questions:</strong></p>
  
  <p>1) Is this a reasonable/idiomatic place to define a function of this sort?</p>
  
  <p>2) If this isn't the correct place to define the function, where should I define it?</p>
  
  <p>3) If this is the correct place to define the function, how can I go about loading various CakePHP helpers?</p>
  
  <p>Again, I am new to CakePHP, so please let me know if my question is unclear, and forgive my ignorance.  I've read/searched through a fair amount of the CakePHP documentation and while I can find plenty of references to loading helpers within Controllers via <code>App::import(...);</code> or <code>$helpers = array(...);</code>, I do not seem to have access to the App object and the <code>$helpers</code> member is specific to the <code>AppController</code> class, I assume.  I assume I'm going about this incorrectly, so please help me understand the Cake way of accomplishing this.</p>