If I have 10 images, 2 javascript files, and 4 css files that need to be included inside a Ci view... How is the best way to call all the files? I've tried calling all the external files using $this->load->view('image1.png') and $this->load->view('style.css'). But it doesn't seem to work properly. Any ideas on how to better approach this problem?
You're not using the view method correctly there.
You typically assign one view and pass things like js and css to the template. This can vary depending on how you use the framework.
$this->load->view('path-to-view'); will look for a view in the view folder and not an arbitrary file.
You might look into this:
http://codeigniter.com/user_guide/helpers/html_helper.html#img
for loading images, though I personally think it's pointless to call a framework's method for a basic html element like an image.
There are cases when you would use multiple views, like views to be returned as strings - loops and such may need these - but that doesn't look like the case in your question.
Just in case though here's the view docs:
http://codeigniter.com/user_guide/general/views.html
To elaborate further, the general idea is to use the CI controller to handle the data for your page, pass the necessary template data to the template (like your js and css specific to this page) then assign the necessary data to the view and pass that view to the template. You may be wondering what I mean by template too, since out of box CI loads views progressively if you just call them sequentially.
in your controller you may pass the view an array of header info:
$data['css'] = array('some-path.css','another-path.css');
$this->load->view('your-view', $data);
so in your view that handles the header you might call something like this:
<head>
<?php foreach($css AS $c): ?>
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="<?php echo $c; ?>">
<?php endforeach; ?>
</head>
Here's a fair link to CI templates:
How to Deal With Codeigniter Templates?
It's a versatile framework with many options for using it however you are most comfortable.
Related
I've got some scripts I'd like to add to the end of the <body> of the page, and some that I need to have in the <head>. I'm wondering if there's a more elegant way to add certain scripts to the <head> and certain in the <body> using a segment or something like that. Say I have two scripts that are going to go in the body:
$this->view->headScript()->prependFile($assetUrl . "/js/jquery.min.js");
$this->view->headScript()->appendFile($assetUrl . "/js/application.js");
And I want this one in the <head> instead:
$this->view->headScript()->prependFile($assetUrl . "/js/modernizr.min.js");
Calling $this->headScript(); outputs all three in both cases. Is there a way to group scripts? I could just paste the HTML snippet manually, but I'd like to have it in code because I switch to minified versions of the javascript if the site is running in the production environment.
I'd make my own helper called htmlScript. You should be able to extend the existing headScript helper, overriding the registry key property only.
Then just echo out your helper in your layout at the end of the document
<?php echo $this->htmlScript() ?>
Edit Been out of the loop for too long ;)
There's already a helper for you - Zend_View_Helper_InlineScript
If you want to override the script files:
$this->view->headScript()->setFile()
EDIT I'm not sure why I got downvoted. I gave an alternative answer to your question, albeit succinctly. If you have prepended/appended two script files, but for a specific controller or module you wish to override the loading of those scripts with a third, then setFile should do exactly what you asked.
I'm new to programming. I want to fetch the css saved in DB and load in a php file. I'm using CodeIgniter. After loading the css, I want to link to it as an external css. I tried following, but it is not working.
EDIT:
defaultCss.php is the file in which I want to load the css.
$strTemplate.="<link rel='stylesheet' type='text/css' href='".base_url()."user/defaultCss.php'>"
While, I view the page source it gives "Page not found" error.
Below are my controller and view code.
function loadDefaultCSS(){
$this->load->model('UserModel');
$this->UserModel->loadDefaultCSS();
}
View :
if(isset($strTemplateStyles) && $strTemplateStyles!="") {
echo $strTemplateStyles;
}
Model function :
function loadDefaultCSS($strTemplateStyles){
$data['strTemplateStyles']=$strTemplateStyles;
}
Why this is not working ? what is the issue ?
You can use template library for codeigniter.
It provides more flexibility for handling views, loading js and css files.
Also it provides an option for splitting the views into sections like header, content, footer etc. The template library link i have provided above is easy to use and integrate.
It also has very good documentation.
In the above template library the css and js files can be loaded as follows (write below code in controller) -
For loading css files -
$this->template->add_css('path to css file');
For loading js files -
$this->template->add_js('path to js file');
For detailed documentation you can refer above hyperlink.
Well the name of your controller action is loadDefaultCSS, so I would expect the URL for the generated stylesheet to be: (assuming your controller is indeed called User)
base_url()."user/loadDefaultCSS"
Does this work?:
$strTemplate .= '<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css"
href="'.base_url().'"user/loadDefaultCSS">';
I can see a few strange things in your code:
You should not use .php in your CI URLS
How can your view possibly get the style of the user when you're not passing it to the view from your controller?
How do you know what user it concerns? I assume you have not posted all your code?
What happens if you actually open the stylesheet URL that you generate? Does it throw a 404? A CI error?
The Best way to load css is to pass css paths from controller to view and render it from view in large application we its not good practice to load everything in header it can cause performance issue
login_view.php / view
css code
<?php
if(!empty($css_files)){
foreach ($css_files as $css_path) {
?>
<link rel="stylesheet" href="<?php echo $css_path;?>">
<?php
}
}
?>
login.php /controller
$data['css_files'] = array(
base_url('assets/bootstrap/css/bootstrap.min.cs'),
base_url('assets/plugins/iChecksquare/blue.css'),
'https://maxcdn.bootstrapcdn.com/font-awesome/4.4.0/css/font-awesome.min.css');
$this->load->view('login',$data);
same technique you can use for javascript libs
note that sequence of the files are sensitive
I'm working out a process to save actions that occur from jquery in my view in cakephp.. I figure an easy way to load the saved values, such as the width and height for a DIV, would be to have cakephp echo a variable as their width / height in the css file, much the same way it would do this in the view file.. I guess I'm not sure exactly where to look for info on this, if its in the cakephp cookbook I guess I'm missing it as I don't see how to do it in there.. any advice is appreciated.
This is actually pretty easy (and powerful), and can be done without the aid of CakePHP.
First, make a new file in your webroot called css.php. At the top of that file put the following:
<?php header("Content-Type: text/css"); ?>
Now, link to this file in the head of your layout, just as you would a normal CSS file.
<link rel="stylesheet" href="/path/css.php" type="text/css" />
And there you have it, a dynamic CSS file. You can pass information to it like so:
<link rel="stylesheet" href="/path/css.php?c=red&fw=700" type="text/css" />
CLARIFICATION: To access the variables mentioned above, you would use the $_GET variable in the CSS file. Take a look at the link tag above. To access those variables in the css file, you would do something like this:
.class {color:<?php echo $_GET['c']; ?>;font-weight:<?php echo $_GET['fw']; ?>;}
UPDATE: After viewing the link you posted about the CakePHP HTML Helper, I realized that there is a better way to do this if you intend to pass a lot of variables to the css file.
Create a new model and controller called DynamicStyle and DynamicStylesController (or something similar). Then, make a new layout file called css.ctp that all of this controller's views will use. Declare the content-type header statement in that layout file.
The last step would be to link to a method in that controller from the head of your standard layout header.
Now you could make a database table of css rules and use those with the HTML helper in the css view.
I just realized CakePHP has something for this as well:
http://book.cakephp.org/view/1440/style
So this may come in handy for anyone who comes across this in the future
Most HTML in a large website is duplicated across pages (the header, footer, navigation menus, etc.). How do you design your code so that all this duplicate HTML is not actually duplicated in your code? For example, if I want to change my navigation links from a <ul> to a <ol>, I'd like to make that change in just one file.
Here's how I've seen one particular codebase handle this problem. The code for every page looks like this:
print_top_html();
/* all the code/HTML for this particular page */
print_bottom_html();
But I feel uncomfortable with this approach (partially because opening tags aren't in the same file as their closing tags).
Is there a better way?
I mostly work with PHP sites, but I'd be interested in hearing solutions for other languages (I'm not sure if this question is language-agnostic).
I'm not a php programmer, but I know we can use a templating system called Smarty that it works with templates(views), something like asp.net mvc does with Razor.
look here http://www.smarty.net/
One solution at least in the case of PHP (and other programming languages) is templates. Instead of having two functions like you have above it would instead be a mix of HTML and PHP like this.
<html>
<head>
<title><?php print $page_title ?></title>
<?php print $styles ?>
<?php print $scripts ?>
</head>
<body>
<div id="nav">
<?php print $nav ?>
</div>
<div id="content">
<?php print $content ?>
</div>
</body>
</html>
Each variable within this template would contain HTML that was produced by another template, HTML produced by a function, or also content from a database. There are a number of PHP template engines which operate in more or less this manner.
You create a template for HTML that you would generally use over and over again. Then to use it would be something like this.
<?php
$vars['nav'] = _generate_nav();
$vars['content'] = "This is the page content."
extract($vars); // Extracts variables from an array, see php.net docs
include 'page_template.php'; // Or whatever you want to name your template
It's a pretty flexible way of doing things and one which a lot of frameworks and content management systems use.
Here's a really, really simplified version of a common method.
layout.php
<html>
<body>
<?php echo $content; ?>
</body>
</html>
Then
whatever_page.php
<?php
$content = "Hello World";
include( 'layout.php' );
Sounds like you need to use include() or require()
<?php
include("header.inc.php");
output html code for page
include("footer.inc.php");
?>
The header and footer files can hold all the common HTML for the site.
You asked for how other languages handle this, and I didn't see anything other than PHP, so I encourage you to check out Rails. Rails convention is elegant, and reflects #codeincarnate 's version in PHP.
In the MVC framework, the current view is rendered inside of a controller-specific layout file that encapsulates the current method's corresponding view. It uses a "yield" method to identify a section where view content should be inserted. A common layout file looks like this:
<html>
<head>
<% #stylesheet and js includes %>
<body>
<div id="header">Header content, menus, etc…</div>
<%= yield %>
<div id="footer">Footer content</div>
</body>
</html>
This enables the application to have a different look and feel or different navigation based on the controller. In practice, I haven't used different layout files for each controller, but instead rely on the default layout, which is named "application".
However, let's say you had a company website, with separate controllers for "information", "blog", and "admin". You could then change the navigation for each in a clean and unobtrusive manner by handling the different layout views in their respective layout files that correspond to their controllers.
You can always set a custom layout in the controller method by stating:
render :layout => 'custom_layout'
There are also great helper methods built into Rails so you don't have to rely on $global variables in PHP to ensure your CSS and Javascript paths are correct depending on your development environment (dev, staging, prod…). The most common are:
#looks in public/stylesheets and assumes it's a css file
stylesheet_link_tag "filename_without_extension"
#looks in public/javascripts and assumes it's a js file
javascript_include_tag "jquery"
Of course, each of these sections could be expounded upon in much greater detail and this is just brushing the surface. Check out the following for more detail:
http://guides.rubyonrails.org/layouts_and_rendering.html
What you suggested works OK. As long as print_top_html and print_bottom_html stay in sync (and you can use automated tests to check this), then you never need to worry about them again, leaving you to focus on the real content of the site -- the stuff in the middle.
Alternatively, you can combine print_top_html and print_bottom_html into a single call, and send it HTML code (or a callback) to place in the middle.
I use the partials system of Zend_View (very similar to Rails). A partial is essentially a small HTML template that has its own variable scope. It can be called from inside views like:
<?php echo $this->partial('my_partial.phtml', array( 'var1' => $myvar ));
The variables that get passed into the construct get bound to local variables inside the partial itself. Very handy for re-use.
You can also render a partial from inside normal code, if you're writing a helper object where you have more complex logic than you'd normally feel comfortable putting in a view.
public function helperFunction()
{
// complex logic here
$html = $this->getView()->partial('my_partial.phtml', array('var1' => $myvar ));
return $html;
}
Then in your view
<?php echo $this->myHelper()->helperFunction(); ?>
So I had a question on general organization of code for the Zend framework with regard to the layout.
My layout is basically this:
(LAYOUT.PHTML)
<div id='header'>
<?= $this->Layout()->header ?>
</div>
<div id='main'>
<?= $this->Layout()->main ?>
</div>
<div id='footer'>
<?= $this->Layout()->footer ?>
</div>
and so on and so forth. Now, in order to keep my code in my header separate from the code of my main and the code of my footer, I've created a folder for my view that holds header.phtml, main.phtml, footer.phtml. I then use this code to assign the content of header.phtml into $this->layout()->header:
(INDEX.PHTML)
$this->Layout()->header = file_get_contents('index/header.phtml');
$this->Layout()->main = file_get_contents('index/main.phtml');
$this->Layout()->footer = file_get_contents('index/footer.phtml');
That was working great, but I've hit a point where I don't want main to be static HTML anymore. I would like to be able to insert some values with PHP. So in my Controller in indexAction, I want to be able to load from my database and put values into index/main.phtml. Is there a way to do this without restructuring my site?
If not is there a way to do it so that I can have:
The ability to put code into different sections of my layout, such as Layout()->header, Layout->footer.
Separate these pieces into different files, so that they're easy to find and organize, like my index/footer.phtml, index/main.phtml etc.
Not have to put that code into quotes unnecessarily to turn it into a string to pass it to Layout()->header etc.
Thank you guys so much for your help.
-Ethan
Here is an idea:
Assign layout()->header the filename instead of the contents.
Put your code in this file
In your layout file, include() or require() the layout->header().
Since your layout headers/footers are now parsed, you can use them just like a view.
The ->header in $this->layout()->header is response segment. You can render parts of response using $this->_helper->viewRenderer->setResponseSegment('header'); in an action.
If you use
$this->layout()->header = $this->render('index/header.phtml');
It will even use the view, therefore keeping all your variables defined when rendering the header.
I would suggest using something like
<?php echo ($header = $this->layout()->header)?
$header : $this->render('headerDefault.phtml'); ?>
in your layout file - it will render a default header from the layout folder if the view script doesn't override it.
Have you tried looking at view helpers. They are a way of structuring view logic into reusable and modular code. In this case you would use a view helper to generate each of your required segments. So your example view script would look like
$this->Layout()->header = $this->header();
$this->Layout()->main = $this->main();
$this->Layout()->footer = $this->footer();
The benefit of using view helpers over include and require statements is that all of the file handling and name resolution is handled by the framework. The manual has more information on how to set up the paths and usage examples etc.
helpers are good. Another option is like the above, putting filenames in header/footer - put the template names and use $this->render($this->layout()->header)), etc etc. This is just like the include/require above, but more consistent.