I'm creating a component in Joomla! 3.1.4 which contains multiple models. What I would like to accomplish is to add multiple models B that associate with model A in A's edit view.
To be specific, I want to keep adding unlimited number of model B to connect to model A when I am editing model A. And provide a simple list of B's in A's edit view.
This can of course be done in B's edit views, or fully hard coded within A's edit view. I believe Joomla! should have some methods to accomplish that to avoid code duplications.
Can anyone please shed a light on this? Thanks!
The Joomla Doc's website covers this subject in the article "Using multiple models in an MVC component"
To call another model from the view, in the view display() method
$modelA = $this->getModel('ModelA');
$modelB = $this->getModel('ModelB');
Related
I am new to Joomla component developement and currently fighting with certain basic design patterns!
Lets say, I am developing a component where users can enter simple notes into their personal notebooks.
On calling the view "index.php?option=com_notebook&view=notes" I simply show a list of all note entries of the user. No problem so far, this is working fine.
Now I want to extend my component with the following feature: on opening the view "index.php?option=com_notebook&view=notes", I want to check if the user has already created a notebook before. If yes, I show all note entries, if not, I want to load a different view which contains a form to create a new notebook with certain options.
But how can this be done in a clean way?
For sure, I just can implement the form within the view "notes", but this is not the clean way, isnt it?
I also tried to override the function "display()" of the main controller and set the view manually if no notebook exists. But if I do so, I have to handle all calls to other views of my component manually within the function "display()". To solve this, I created a copy the original implementation from the class "JControllerLegacy" and changed it to my needs - this is working - but is this really the best way to handle problems like this?
So I ask you, what is the best approach to solve this problem?
Thx a lot!
According to me the best solution of your problem is to provide "New" and "Edit" button to your notebook listing page and create edit view of notbook. Same as Joomla has articles and article views.
So, As you mentioned above if use dose not have any notebook then he/she can create a new notebook using that "New" button. when user clicked on "New" button he has blank form where he/she can create new notebook.
here is the example how to create listing and edit view in Joomla. Hope this will help you.
https://docs.joomla.org/J3.x:Developing_an_MVC_Component/Adding_backend_actions
I am working in CakePHP for the 1st time. I need to create multiple views for a single controller.
Eg: I have a settings table.
Schema of settings table
1.ID
2.Name
3.Type
I have created its model and controller using cake bake. But i have multiple views from where the data goes into the settings table. My data of designations, departments, qualifications, projects and many other things go into the type field of the settings table with their names as entered.
So when i m creating the model and controller thru cake bake it is creating view as per the settings table, whereas i need view pages as per types, i.e Create Designation, Create Departments, Create Projects and also view, edit and delete files for them.
Pls help me find a way to achieve that..
I think you are looking for
$this->render('viewfilename');
create as many views as you want and based on your requirement send then in specific view from controller.
For example:
public function add($type) {
if ($this->request->is('post')) {
...
}
$this->set(............);
switch ($type) {
case 'designations':
$this->render('add_designations');
break;
case 'departments':
$this->render('add_departments');
break;
case 'qualifications':
$this->render('add_qualifications');
break;
}
}
and make view files as add_designations.ctp, add_departments.ctp, add_qualifications.ctp etc in view folder.
You can add Views by creating a .ctp file in the respective Views Folder (Views/"Modelname"/add_department.ctp)
In your "Modelname" Controller you just add
function addDepartment() {
// Logic here
}
But if you just want to set the type, you can create a normal add.ctp and create a Selectbox with all the different possible Types.
You need to read again how the pattern Model View Controller (MVC) works.
If you want to create a new department, you probably want to use the departmentsController associated with the Department model.
In each controller you will have the actions associated with it. This way Cake Bake will generate the add, delete and edit code for each of your controllers.
Of course, you can create them by your own in the controller you prefer making use of the model you wish. But don't expect Cake bake to work differently :)
I'm new to Codeigniter and pretty new to OOP as of the last month or so. I've been playing around and have been trying to make a blog page with a list of 10 posts and have different functions and possibilities for each.
For example, in the future I want to be able to show different buttons below posts depending on whether they are a logged in user, or if they are the post creator, etc.
Would I be best off making a new class 'blog_posts' and making an instance of it for every post I show on the page? like:
$this->load->library('blog_posts'); // in library or models, I'm not too sure?
$new_inst = new blog_posts;
$new_inst->show_post();
My end goal is to get it all as easily updated, changed, or modified in future if needed, I've seen simple tutorials online:
http://blog.pisyek.com/2011/03/create-a-simple-blog-using-codeigniter-2-0-part-1/
But I can't see them being easily updated and modified in future. I haven't seen a lot of other CI apps using new instances of classes, so I'm thinking there may be a different way in CI? Are new instances used in CI a lot?
Start with the controller. With Codeigniter -- anything you can do in a model, you can do in the controller. The easiest way to start -- just put your methods in the controller and set up a simple view file.
Always do a simple sanity check to make sure the basics are proper. Set up a controller and echo out some text.
In the controller try:
Get blog posts from your database using active record commands
Pass the blog posts result to $Data
With each step, Echo out something in the controller to confirm that its working
Next -- try using $Data to pass the blog results to the view.
After its working and you understand the basics -- then start pushing your methods to a Model. As you refactor and clean, your controller will get 'thinner'.
typically for blog posts you would have one model, that would return the blog posts and might also have your insert / update / delete methods. i say might because it usually makes more sense to have a public blog controller, that just shows blog posts. and then a separate blog admin controller -- that is only available to users who are logged in.
These two controllers - can share the same blog model. So for example to show blog posts on an admin screen - you could use the same method as showing the posts on a public page. Whereas you might have an admin blog model -- which has the create / update / delete methods.
That way you enforce a very clear separation of User Roles from the start -- people who are viewing the public blog should not be able to delete posts. The public show blog class is not "responsible" for editing.
This is something that i'm grappling with -- like the normal way to demonstrate a blog is to have all the methods together. Which makes sense in terms of "what can we do with a blog post" -- but it doesn't make any sense in terms of user roles.
ok Next - work on your create and update and delete methods.
Next try creating your log in methods. Make the Login process separate controller / model / view.
Eventually you could have one method call in the constructor of your blog admin class that checks to make sure that the user is logged in - otherwise it redirects them to a login page. That way you dont have to check over and over again in the view files etc to make sure they are authorized.
( highly recommend the free codeigniter tutorial series on net tuts website )
more rambling:
looking at the process from the point of view of the actor (user,role) -- for me helps to clarify what the chain of control should be. really critical roles - like an admin that has the power to delete all blog posts - the system should know that role at the top of the class.
best 'worst example' is when there are "is this a super admin?" checks in the view code. the view should not know anything about admin roles. BUT MUCH WORSE when you put a reference to an admin role in some view file -- what happens when you want to change that admin role in some way? now you have to go into all your view files!
class and method names - i'm moving towards not revealing any business or crud or field or any other type of business information in the URL. no nouns no verbs no ids. as simple as possible, with very few public url 'doors' into the app.
whats wonderful is that codeigniter makes it really easy to make your methods private. for critical pages: only use the public index method in the class for redirecting and make all other methods private.
use routes that directly to private methods. or public methods with broad names, that if successful -- like you have confirmed their credentials - go to private methods in the class like $this->_showAdminPage()
this is where defining a role like - blog editor - makes things very clear from a functionality point of view, AND keeps the valuable business knowledge private.
I am using Symfony 1.2.9 (with Propel ORM) to create a website. I have started using the admin generator to implement the admin functionality.
I have come accross a slight 'problem' however. My models are related (e.g. one table may have several 1:N relations and N:N relations). I have not found a way to address this satisfactorily yet. As a tactical solution (for list views), I have decided to simply show the parent object, and then add interactions to show the related objects.
I'll use a Blog model to illustrate this.
Here are the relationships for a blog model:
N:M relationship with Blogroll (models a blog roll)
1:N relationship with Blogpost (models a post submitted to a blog)
I had originally intended on displaying the (paged) blogpost list for a blog,, when it was selected, using AJAX, but I am struggling enough with the admin generator as it is, so I have shelved that idea - unless someone is kind enough to shed some light on how to do this.
Instead, what I am now doing (as a tactical/interim soln), is I have added interactions to the list view which allow a user to:
View a list of the blog roll for the
blog on that row
View a list of the posts for the blog on that row
Add a post for the blog on tha row
In all of the above, I have written actions that will basically forward the request to the approriate action (admin generated). However, I need to pass some parameters (like the blog id etc), so that the correct blog roll or blog post list etc is returned.
I am sure there is a better way of doing what I want to do, but in case there isn't here are my questions:
How may I obtain the object that relates to a specific row (of the
clicked link) in the list view (e.g. the blog object in this example)
Once I have the object, I may choose to extract various fields: id etc.
How can I pass these arguments to the admin generated action ?
Regarding the second question, my guess is that this may be the way to do it (I may be wrong)
public function executeMyAddedBlogRollInteractionLink(sfWebRequest $request)
{
// get the object *somehow* (I'm guessing this may work)
$object = $this->getRoute()->getObject();
// retrieve the required parameters from the object, and build a query string
$query_str=$object->getId();
//forward the request to the generated code (action to display blogroll list in this case)
$this->forward('backendmodulename',"getblogrolllistaction?params=$query_string");
}
This feels like a bit of a hack, but I'm not sure how else to go about it. I'm also not to keen on sending params (which may include user_id etc via a GET, even a POST is not that much safer, since it is fairly sraightforward to see what requests a browser is making). if there is a better way than what I suggest above to implement this kind of administration that is required for objects with 1 or more M:N relationships, I will be very glad to hear the "recommended" way of going about it.
I remember reading about marking certain actions as internal. i.e. callable from only within the app. I wonder if that would be useful in this instance?
I'm assuming your application is called backend. Suppose there are two models, BlogPost and BlogPostComment. These are managed using admin generated modules called blog_post and blog_post_comment.
I believe you want a link against each BlogPost displayed on the list page at backend.php/blog_post. The links take you to backend.php/blog_post_comment, which should only show comments related to the relevant BlogPost.
Under apps/backend/blog_post/templates, create a file called _commentslink.php and put this in it:
View Comments
Then in apps/backend/blog_post/config/generator.yml, you need to include this partial in the fields for the list view:
....
param:
config:
list:
display: [ id, title, _commentslink ]
Note the _commentslink - the _ tells it to use a partial instead of looking for the field in the model. Your object is available in this partial as $<name of model> - $blog_post in this case.
Essentially, all this method does is links to the same action as the filter on the comments list normally goes to, passing the relevant condition to it to make it filter by blogpost_id.
If you've got CSRF protection enabled in the backend, you'll need to disable it, or this method won't work. This is set in apps/backend/config/settings.yml. There will be a setting in there called csrf_secret - it should be set to false to disable csrf.
You should try symfony 1.3/1.4 out if you need support for 1:N relationships in forms. 1.3 is in my experience a relatively hassle free upgrade from 1.2.x - 1.4 is the same, but with deprecated features removed.
I developed an application with different MVCs using the Yii Framework
For example
I created a crud layer for Student Contact details and Student Courses etc.
All worked perfectly since each had its own menu, and when clicked eachs own view rendered.
Now my client wants everything on one page, and is quite persistent, we are talking about 7 MVC that need to be displayed on one page. Each MVC has it's own controller, model and view and own DB table. How can I render all of them on one page without re-writing the whole application? Is this possible.
If I understood your problem correctly, you simply want to merge all menu items and show the full navigation on each page.
By separating menus into standalone views and including each and one of them into a navigation view, you can have a well-structured non-repeating code.
$this->renderPartial('anotherView');
is pretty much everything you might need to know to get started. This is only callable in views as $this refers to the current controller object.
You can use views from other controllers:
$this->renderPartial('application.views.student_Contact.show',array('model'=>$model));
Hope this helps.