I have a view, header.php, that gets loaded in various controller methods. It contains my opening html tag, a base tag for my relative links, and some meta tags that I call in every page of my application. Is there way to load the helpers that render the meta tags and base url so that they are available to header.php every time it is loaded without having to include $this->load->helper('html'); and $this->load->helper('url'); every time I $this->load->view('templates/header', $data); in a controller to load header.php?
If you're needing these that often, you should just add those to your helpers autoload:
In /application/config/autoload.php around line 93, change
$autoload['helper'] = array();
to
$autoload['helper'] = array('html', 'url');
Then, they're loaded on every request.
Simple, add them to the autoload file. That way they'll be accessible from any file, and you won't ever have to call those.
Related
Very new to CI. Have completed only the initial tutorial and now want to customise the code.
My question relates to customising the example code once that tutorial is complete.
How can I define the current year once so that the footer template file can display the current year regardless of which controller is being invoked?
There is a header template which includes the following code: <?= esc($title) ?> (also, is the <?= syntax specific to CI?)
I understand the $title variable contains the value populated in $data['title'] within each of two controllers:
as $data['title'] = ucfirst($page); // Capitalize the first letter in Pages.php
as $data['title'] = $data['news']['title']; in News.php
and also as $data = ['news' => $model->getNews(), 'title' => 'News archive',]; in News.php (also - why is there a trailing comma here?)
The first customisation I would like to do is to put the current year into the footer template. To generate the current year, I am using date("Y").
I have reviewed one or two other questions here but cannot solve it.
From reading those answers, it seems I have many options:
Define a constant in the config file
Create "MY_Controller" which can extend CI_Controller, Controller or BaseController (?) then update all controllers in the app so they extend MY_Controller ... but how exactly do I use MY_Controller to populate $data['currentYear'] so that the footer template may reference it as $currentYear? (Or do I need to reference it a different way from the template?)
Create "MY_Controller" as above (with all the same questions) but put the file in application/libraries
... or in application\core
Create your own defines.php file and require that from index.php (? - there is no index.php in this example)
Create your own helper function (where to put it?) which can then be used "everywhere" in your code (but how? And when I tried using direct PHP in the footer file, it did not interpret the code - so how would you call a helper function from the footer template?)
I tried almost all of the above. I modified BaseController. I extended from BaseController to create my own controller then had all the other controllers extend my controller.
Obviously what I'm trying to achieve is to calculate the current year once so that the footer template can display it regardless of which controller is being invoked.
I'm starting a large codeigniter project and would like to try to create some reusable 'mini' views for snippets of content like loops of data which may be displayed on different pages/controllers.
Is it better to call the views from within the main controller's view? If so, how? Or should I call the 'mini view' from the controller and thus pass the view's code to the main view?
Views within other views are called Nested views.
There are two ways of including nested views in CodeIgniter:
1. Load a nested view inside the controller
Load the view in advance and pass to the other view. First put this in the controller:
<?php
// the "TRUE" argument tells it to return the content, rather than display it immediately
$data['menu'] = $this->load->view('menu', NULL, TRUE);
$this->load->view ('home', $data);
?>
Then put <?=$menu?> in your view at the point you want the menu to appear.
2. Load a view "from within" a view
First put this in the controller:
<?php
$this->load->view('home');
?>
Then put this in the /application/views/home.php view:
<?php $this->view('menu'); ?>
<p>Other home content...</p>
About best method, I prefer the 1st method over 2nd one, because by using 1st method I don't have to mix up code, it is not like include php. Although indirectly both are same, the 1st method is clearer & cleaner than 2nd one!
Honestly I prefer to do this by having template views then loading that with the necessary data from the controller, it means a lot less repeated code and follows the DRY concept better than loading views from views. Especially for things like headers, footers and menus.
So my template view would look something like this:
template.php
$this->load->view('header',$title);
$this->load->view('sidebar',$sidebar_content);
$this->load->view('main_content',$main_content);
$this->load->view('footer');
Then in my controller I pass the data required to the template like this:
$data['title'] = 'Home Page';
$data['sidebar_content']='pages/standard_sidebar';
$data['main_content'] ='pages/my_home_page';
$this->load->view('template',$data);
There are a number of benefits to doing it this way. First is I can have multiple templates, for example I have, in my case, two main ones, one for full page views without a sidebar and one for pages with a sidebar, I also call an if statement to decide which header to include, the regular one or the one with the admin menu in it.
Yes I could include the header, sidebar and footer in every main view page, but that ends up in a ton of duplicate code. And what happens if for example I want all my pages to have something new, some other small snippet? Using templates I add the snippet to the appropriate template and it's done. Going the other route I find every page and add the snippet view there, it's the equivalent to having CSS in the page in my opinion, wasteful and not ultimately maintainable.
METHOD 1
I use this method into my view to insert the include view where I want
$this->load->view('include/include_view');
METHOD 2
or in the controller you can load more than a view like this:
$this->load->view('header_view');
$this->load->view('list_view');
$this->load->view('footer_view');
No one method is better than the other, it depends if you have to pass some data (in this case use method2) or if you want to include a view in a specific part of your main view (in this case is better to use method1)
METHOD 3
Passing data to your include view by your main view
into your controller:
$data['title'] = "Title";
$this->load->view('main_view',$data);
in your view
$data2['title'] = $title;
$this->load->view('include/include_view',$data2);
If you want to pass entire data to your include view you can do in this way:
in your controller:
$data['nestedView']['title'] = 'title';
in your view
$this->load->view('includes/included_view', $nestedView);
This a simple way of including views within views.there is no need to load views in advance.just pass view path to other view.
In your controller use this:
$data['middle'] = 'includeFolder/include_template_view'; //the view you want to include
$this->load->view('main_template_view',$data); //load your main view
and in main_template_view you can include other views :
$this->load->view($middle);
In my opinion for solve in more efficient way this problem I have done so:
You create a new helper (in application/helpers) with name (es. common_helpers.php, the underscore is important). In this file, you put all the functions for example build pieces of html in common.
<?php if ( ! defined('BASEPATH')) exit('No direct script access allowed');
function getHead(){
require_once(APPPATH."views/common/head.php");
}
function getScripts(){
require_once(APPPATH."views/common/scripts.php");
}
function getFooter(){
require_once(APPPATH."views/common/footer.php");
}
In your controller you call only one view in respect of MVC and call the functions from your custom helper.
class Hello extends CI_Controller {
public function index(){
$this->load->helper('common');
$this->load->view('index');
}
}
In the controller
controller
<?php
public function view($page = NULL)
{
if ( ! file_exists(APPPATH.'views/pages/'.$page.'.php'))
{
$data['title'] = ucfirst($page); // Capitalize the first letter
// Whoops, we don't have a page for that
show_404();
}
$data= array('');
$data['title'] = ucfirst($page); // Capitalize the first letter
$data['page_layout']='pages/'.$page;
$this->load->view('page_layout', $data);
}
?>
In the Views folder create a page called page_layout.php
page_layout.php
//This is where you set the layout to call any view through a variable called $page_layout declared in the controller//
<?php
$this->load->view('header');
$this->view($page_layout);
$this->load->view('footer');
?>
For loading the views in CodeIgniter, I have to repeat loading the fixed views (header and footer) which is a little annoying to be repeated for every view-related controller.
Currently when I want to load views in CI, I do the following:
$this->load->view("header");
$this->load->view("index");
$this->load->view("footer");
Then, how can I change $this->load->view(); to get a parameter (for instance boolean) which allows a view to be loaded before/after the targeted view. Such as this one:
$this->load->view("index", TRUE, FALSE, $data); // TRUE=>header FALSE=>footer $data=>common variable
Is it possible to hack the function like this?
try this library, it worked for me, when I used it
https://github.com/philsturgeon/codeigniter-template
You can do with library.
Create a new library file called template.php and write a function called load_template. In that function, use above code.
public function load_template($view_file_name,$data_array=array())
{
$ci = &get_instatnce();
$ci->load->view("header");
$ci->load->view($view_file_name,$data_array);
$ci->> load->view("footer");
}
You have to load this library in autoload file in config folder. so you don't want to load in all controller.
You can this function like
$this->template->load_template("index");
If you want to pass date to view file, then you can send via $data_array
i am using laravel's blade template and i have a master template for all my pages. In the master template i have a top bar and a sidebar. I want to load something in the sidebar. But i don't know how do it in a simpler way. Now i am calling that method (which i want in to display in my sidebar) in every controller i have like this:
View::make()->with('data_to_load_in_sidebar',$data_to_load_in_sidebar)
How can i load this only once, not every time i generate a view?
This is what view composers are for, any view that is loaded will automatically have it's composer run alongside providing the view with any extra data it may require.
View::composer(array('partials.sidebar'), function($view)
{
$news = News::all();
$view->with('news', $news);
});
I typically put this in my routes.php file in both L3 and L4.
In the view views\partials\sidebar.blade.php you now always have access to the variable $news that will contain all models from the News collection.
I would share top bar & sidebar data in constructor (prefferably in some BaseController's contructor, that other controllers extends).
public function __construct()
{
// if needed, call parent's contructor method as well
parent::__construct()
$data_to_load_in_sidebar = loadDataForSidebar();
View::share('data_to_load_in_sidebar',$data_to_load_in_sidebar)
}
I'm starting a large codeigniter project and would like to try to create some reusable 'mini' views for snippets of content like loops of data which may be displayed on different pages/controllers.
Is it better to call the views from within the main controller's view? If so, how? Or should I call the 'mini view' from the controller and thus pass the view's code to the main view?
Views within other views are called Nested views.
There are two ways of including nested views in CodeIgniter:
1. Load a nested view inside the controller
Load the view in advance and pass to the other view. First put this in the controller:
<?php
// the "TRUE" argument tells it to return the content, rather than display it immediately
$data['menu'] = $this->load->view('menu', NULL, TRUE);
$this->load->view ('home', $data);
?>
Then put <?=$menu?> in your view at the point you want the menu to appear.
2. Load a view "from within" a view
First put this in the controller:
<?php
$this->load->view('home');
?>
Then put this in the /application/views/home.php view:
<?php $this->view('menu'); ?>
<p>Other home content...</p>
About best method, I prefer the 1st method over 2nd one, because by using 1st method I don't have to mix up code, it is not like include php. Although indirectly both are same, the 1st method is clearer & cleaner than 2nd one!
Honestly I prefer to do this by having template views then loading that with the necessary data from the controller, it means a lot less repeated code and follows the DRY concept better than loading views from views. Especially for things like headers, footers and menus.
So my template view would look something like this:
template.php
$this->load->view('header',$title);
$this->load->view('sidebar',$sidebar_content);
$this->load->view('main_content',$main_content);
$this->load->view('footer');
Then in my controller I pass the data required to the template like this:
$data['title'] = 'Home Page';
$data['sidebar_content']='pages/standard_sidebar';
$data['main_content'] ='pages/my_home_page';
$this->load->view('template',$data);
There are a number of benefits to doing it this way. First is I can have multiple templates, for example I have, in my case, two main ones, one for full page views without a sidebar and one for pages with a sidebar, I also call an if statement to decide which header to include, the regular one or the one with the admin menu in it.
Yes I could include the header, sidebar and footer in every main view page, but that ends up in a ton of duplicate code. And what happens if for example I want all my pages to have something new, some other small snippet? Using templates I add the snippet to the appropriate template and it's done. Going the other route I find every page and add the snippet view there, it's the equivalent to having CSS in the page in my opinion, wasteful and not ultimately maintainable.
METHOD 1
I use this method into my view to insert the include view where I want
$this->load->view('include/include_view');
METHOD 2
or in the controller you can load more than a view like this:
$this->load->view('header_view');
$this->load->view('list_view');
$this->load->view('footer_view');
No one method is better than the other, it depends if you have to pass some data (in this case use method2) or if you want to include a view in a specific part of your main view (in this case is better to use method1)
METHOD 3
Passing data to your include view by your main view
into your controller:
$data['title'] = "Title";
$this->load->view('main_view',$data);
in your view
$data2['title'] = $title;
$this->load->view('include/include_view',$data2);
If you want to pass entire data to your include view you can do in this way:
in your controller:
$data['nestedView']['title'] = 'title';
in your view
$this->load->view('includes/included_view', $nestedView);
This a simple way of including views within views.there is no need to load views in advance.just pass view path to other view.
In your controller use this:
$data['middle'] = 'includeFolder/include_template_view'; //the view you want to include
$this->load->view('main_template_view',$data); //load your main view
and in main_template_view you can include other views :
$this->load->view($middle);
In my opinion for solve in more efficient way this problem I have done so:
You create a new helper (in application/helpers) with name (es. common_helpers.php, the underscore is important). In this file, you put all the functions for example build pieces of html in common.
<?php if ( ! defined('BASEPATH')) exit('No direct script access allowed');
function getHead(){
require_once(APPPATH."views/common/head.php");
}
function getScripts(){
require_once(APPPATH."views/common/scripts.php");
}
function getFooter(){
require_once(APPPATH."views/common/footer.php");
}
In your controller you call only one view in respect of MVC and call the functions from your custom helper.
class Hello extends CI_Controller {
public function index(){
$this->load->helper('common');
$this->load->view('index');
}
}
In the controller
controller
<?php
public function view($page = NULL)
{
if ( ! file_exists(APPPATH.'views/pages/'.$page.'.php'))
{
$data['title'] = ucfirst($page); // Capitalize the first letter
// Whoops, we don't have a page for that
show_404();
}
$data= array('');
$data['title'] = ucfirst($page); // Capitalize the first letter
$data['page_layout']='pages/'.$page;
$this->load->view('page_layout', $data);
}
?>
In the Views folder create a page called page_layout.php
page_layout.php
//This is where you set the layout to call any view through a variable called $page_layout declared in the controller//
<?php
$this->load->view('header');
$this->view($page_layout);
$this->load->view('footer');
?>