Conditional Joomla module position and span - php

Question

I am having trouble setting up a joomla conditional module position and span.
Although I understand HTML, I have trouble with php. According to the tutorials, I have to add
<?php if ($this->countModules( 'user1' )) : ?>
<div class="user1">
<jdoc:include type="modules" name="user1" style="rounded" />
</div>
<?php endif; ?>
Although when I add something like it, I receive an error.
The code that I want to change is:
<?php
//no direct accees
defined ('_JEXEC') or die('resticted aceess');
class Helix3FeatureTitle {
private $helix3;
public function __construct($helix){
$this->helix3 = $helix;
$this->position = 'title';
}
public function renderFeature() {
$app = JFactory::getApplication();
$menuitem = $app->getMenu()->getActive(); // get the active item
if($menuitem) {
$params = $menuitem->params; // get the menu params
if($params->get('enable_page_title', 0)) {
$page_title = $menuitem->title;
$page_title_alt = $params->get('page_title_alt');
$page_subtitle = $params->get('page_subtitle');
$page_title_bg_color = $params->get('page_title_bg_color');
$page_title_bg_image = $params->get('page_title_bg_image');
$style = '';
if($page_title_bg_color) {
$style .= 'background-color: ' . $page_title_bg_color . ';';
}
if($page_title_bg_image) {
$style .= 'background-image: url(' . JURI::root(true) . '/' . $page_title_bg_image . ');';
}
if( $style ) {
$style = 'style="' . $style . '"';
}
if($page_title_alt) {
$page_title = $page_title_alt;
}
$output = '';
$output .= '<div class="sp-page-title"'. $style .'>';
$output .= '<div class="container" id="pagetitle">';
$output .= '<div class="row">';
$output .= '<div class="col-md-6 col-sm-8">';
$output .= '<h1>'. $page_title .'</h1>';
if($page_subtitle) {
$output .= '<p class="lead">'. $page_subtitle .'</p>';
}
$output .= '</div>';
$output .= '<div class="col-md-6 col-sm-4 hidden-xs">';
$output .= '<jdoc:include type="modules" name="datetime" style="none" />';
$output .= '</div>';
$output .= '</div>';
$output .= '</div>';
$output .= '</div>';
return $output;
}
}
}
}
and what I want to do is tell the template that when the module position 'datetime' is empty, the "title" position should have 12span and be "text-center".
Otherwise if module position 'datetime' has a module, the 'title' position should have 6span and be "text-left".
I have tried different methods and I receive different errors each time. This is why I did not mention a spcecific error. For example, if I use this method:
if($this->countModules('datetime')) { $output .= '<div class="col-md-6 col-sm-4 hidden-xs">'; $output .= '<jdoc:include type="modules" name="datetime" style="none" />'; $output .= '</div>'; };
I receive the following error:
Fatal error: Call to undefined method Helix3FeatureTitle::countModules() in ...
I would really appreciate some assistance. Thank you.

Answer 1

The problem is that you are trying to us countModules() in a place where it isn't going to work because that method is from a different class.
From the looks of it what this method is doing is generating the Joomla template.
So what you can do is
$output .="<?php if ($this->countModules( 'user1' )) : ?>";
$output .= '<div class="col-md-6 col-sm-4 hidden-xs">';
$output .= '<jdoc:include type="modules" name="datetime" style="none" />';
$output .= '</div>';
$output .= '<?php endif; ?>';
So that it will generate the code for the condition. I haven't tested because I don't have the class you are using but it should work.
Updated to fix quoting.