I have a site that has a lot of pages that lye at the root (ex. /contact, /about, /home, /faq, /privacy, /tos, etc.). My question is should these all be separate controllers or one controller with many methods (ex. contact, about, index within a main.php controller )?
UPDATE:
I just realized that methods that are within the default controller don't show in the url without the default controller (ie. main/contact wont automatically route to /contact if main is the default controller ). So you would need to go into routes and override each page.
If all of these are just pages, I would recommend putting them into a single controller. I usually end up putting static pages like this into a 'pages' controller and putting in routes for each static page to bypass the '/pages' in my URLs.
If they are share the same functionality, so they should be in the same controller.
for example, if all of them are using the same model to take content from, so, one controller can easily handle it.
Why in one controller? because you always want to reuse your code.
class someController{
function cotact(){
print $this->getContentFromModel(1);
}
function about(){
print $this->getContentFromModel(2);
}
function home(){
print $this->getContentFromModel(3);
}
private function getContentFromModel($id){
return $this->someContentModel->getContentById($id);
}
}
(instead of print, you should use load a view)
See in my example how all of the function are using the same getContentFromModel function to share the same functionality.
but this is one case only, there could be ther cases that my example can be bad for...
in application/config/routes.php
$route['contact'] = "mainController/contact";
$route['about'] = "mainController/about";
$route['home'] = "mainController/home";
$route['faq'] = "mainController/faq";
$route['privacy'] = "mainController/privacy";
and you should add all of these methods within the mainController.php
You can also save the content of the pages in your database, and them query it. For instance, you can send the url as the keyword to identify the page content
$route['contact'] = "mainController/getContent/contact";
$route['about'] = "mainController/getContent/about";
$route['home'] = "mainController/getContent/home";
$route['faq'] = "mainController/getContent/faq";
$route['privacy'] = "mainController/getContent/privacy";
in this case you only have to create one method named "getContent" in the controller "mainController" and this method will look something like this:
class mainController extends CI_Controller
{
public function getContent($param)
{
$query = $this->db->get_where('mytable', array('pageName' => $param));
// then get the result and print it in a view
}
}
Hope this works for you
The page names you listed should probably be different methods inside your main controller. When you have other functionality that is related to another specific entity, like user, you can create another controller for the user entity and have different methods to display the user, update the user, register the user. But its all really a tool for you to organize your application in a way that makes sense for your domain and your domain model.
I've written a blog post about organizing CodeIgniter controller methods that might be helpful to you. Check it out here: http://caseyflynn.com/2011/10/26/codeigniter-php-framework-how-to-organize-controllers-to-achieve-dry-principles/
Related
i want to achieve url routing something like www.example.com/alicia
suppose alicia is not a class name or method name just something like passing data in url and with some class i want to access this and want to use it for further process.How i can use it ? Thanks in advance.
You can use Codeigniter's built-in routing, the file route.php is located in your config folder.
there you can add:
$route['alicia'] = 'welcome/index/something';
$route['alicia/:any'] = 'welcome/index/someotherthing/$1';
then in your controller, for example welcome you just create a function like:
public function index($page = null){
if($page=='something'){
// do what you need to do, for example load a view:
$this->load->view('allaboutalicia');
}
elseif ($page=='someotherthing'){
// here you can read in data from url (www.example.com/alicia/2017
$year=$this->uri->segment(2); // you need to load the helper url previously
}else{
// do some other stuff
}
}
documentation on routing and on urlhelper
edit after comment:
in case your uri segment is representing a variable, like a username, then you should use a uri scheme like www.example.com/user/alice and create your route like:
$route['user/:any'] = 'welcome/index/user';
then in your controller welcome
public function index($page=null){
if($page=='user'){
// do what you need to do with that user
$user=$this->uri->segment(2); // you need to load the helper url
}
else{
// exception
}
}
This could be tricky because you don't want to break any existing urls that already work.
If you are using Apache, you can set up a mod_rewrite rule that takes care to exclude each of your controllers that is NOT some name.
Alternatively, you could create a remap method in your base controller.
class Welcome extends CI_Controller
{
public function _remap($method)
{
echo "request for $method being handled by " . __METHOD__;
}
}
You could write logic in that method to examine the requested $method or perhaps look at $_SERVER["REQUEST_URI"] to decide what you want to do. This can be a bit tricky to sort out but is probably a good way to get started.
Another possibility, if you can think of some way to distinguish these urls from your other urls, would be to use the routing functionality of codeigniter and define a pattern matching rule in the routes.php file that points these names to some controller which handles them.
I believe that the default_controller will be a factor in this. Any controller/method situations that actually correspond to a controller::method class should be handled by that controller::method. Any that do not match will, I believe, be assigned to your default_controller:
$route['default_controller'] = 'welcome';
I am building a cms in codeigniter and i want to remove controller name and function name form the url and just print the alias.
I will be having two controllers one for static pages and other for blog posts with categories.
Please help, Suggestions reagrding modification of two controllers are also welcome.
You will need to override the default 404 controller in application/config/routes.php.
$route['404_override'] = 'content';
Any request that can't be mapped to a controller will be passed to the application/controllers/content.php controller
Your Content controller, or whatever you decide to call it, will parse the uri [$this->uri->segment(1)] and check for a matching reference in your CMS database.
If there is no match in the database, then you can look for a static view in the views folder and load it.
if(is_file(FCPATH.'views/'.$this->uri->segment(1).'.php')) {
$this->load->view($controller,$this->data);
}
If no static view is found, and there is no matching content in the db, call the show_404() function.
Using this method, you will keep the default CI functionality of uri mapping, so at any time, you can add controllers as you normally would and the app will perform like a vanilla CI install.
I'm creating a simple blog with Codeigniter. But I'm having trouble calling another controller besides the default controller.
The following URL takes me to the default controller as specified in my config/routes.php.
blog/index.php
According to the documentation, simply appending the name of another controller saved in controllers/ is all that is needed:
blog/index.php/blog_login
Here is my controller class, named blog_login.php:
class Blog_login extends CI_Controller {
public function index()
{
echo 'It works!';
}
}
But doing this throws a 404 error, which makes me feel that I'm missing something. Is there something else that I am supposed to configure before trying to access a different controller?
http://codeigniter.com/user_guide/general/routing.html Read this properly, it couldn't be clearer.
According to the documentation, simply appending the name of another
controller saved in controllers/ is all that is needed
This is not true. If you want to call another controller 'Blog_login', you simply put the name of the controller as the first segment of the url:
domain.com/index.php/blog_login
This will never work:
blog/index.php/blog_login
Index.php (unless you remove it via .htaccess) always follows right after your domain.com
Finally, you don't need to specify routes unless you're doing something non standard. So
domain.com/index.php/blog_login - calls the index() function in your Blog_login controller
domain.com/index.php/blog - calls the index() function in your blog controller
domain.com/index.php/blog/search - calls the search() function in your blog controller.
None of the above examples need an entry in routes.php
When u call:
blog/index.php/blog_login
you're really calling a method called "blog_login" in your "blog" controller. If you want to call another controller, it must have the following structure:
controller_name/controller_method
So, if you wanna call your blog_login controller just call it like this:
blog_login/
Note: Sometimes it's necessary to add the base_url() to your URL in order to make CI understand correctly the URL.
Can you tell me how to use a controller for home page because i'm trying to put a model's data in home.ctp (homepage view) with
<?php $this->user->find() ?>but it returns
Notice (8): Undefined property:
View::$user [APP\views\pages\home.ctp,
line 1]
You should check out the cookbook; it has some solid CakePHP tutorials, at http://book.cakephp.org/
You haven't really provided alot of information, but my guess is your Controller uses a model 'User', and you're putting $this->user->find() in your view, when it should be in your controller. In your controller's action you'll want/need to do something like this...
Users_Controller extends AppController {
function index() {
$arrayOfUsers = $this->User->find(...);
$this->set('users', $arrayOfUsers);
}
}
You can then - in your View - access 'users' like so:
pre($users);
... since you used the Controller method set() to send a variable $users to the view.
All you really need to do is create a new controller if that's the direction you want to go. If this is the only statement you have that requires data access, it might be worth faking it in only this method of the PagesController. For example, one of my projects' homepages is 99% static save for a list of featured events. Rather than move everything out to a new controller or even loading my Event model for the entire PagesController (where it's not needed), I just applied this solution in PagesController::home():
$attractions = ClassRegistry::init ( 'Attraction' )->featured ( 10 );
Works great. If your page is more dynamic than mine, though, it may well be worth routing your homepage through a different controller (one that is more closely related to the data being displayed).
The default controller for the home page i.e home.ctp view, is located in /cake/libs/controller/pages_controller.php. This controller can be overriden by placing a copy in the controllers directory of your application as /app/controllers/pages_controller.php. You can then modify that controller as deem fit i.e. use models, inject variables to be used in the home page etc
Im new to symfony and have some simple questions. I am trying to understand the module system, but I dont understand how I create the actual homepage or other pages that are not based off of a model from the db. For example, the simple about page that has static info or the homepage that is a combination of a bunch of information from different models.
Can anyone help?
First of all, modules do not have to be restricted to a model from the database. You can have a Foo module which relies on no database content, and a Bar module that is primarily based on 3 different models. The module separation is a way to logically break up your site into manageable sections. Eg an e-commerce site might have a Products module, a Categories module and a Cart module and so on.
Your last sentence can then be split into 2 parts:
1) Static information can be on any page - if it's for things like "About us" and "FAQ" etc, I personally tend to use a "default" or "home" module, and create the various actions in there vis:
./symfony generate:module appname home
and
class homeActions extends sfActions
{
public function executeAbout(sfWebRequest $request)
{
// ...
}
public function executeFaq(sfWebRequest $request)
{
// ...
}
}
with the corresponding template files (aboutSuccess.php, faqSuccess.php).
2) A page can be comprised of data from many different models - just use your preferred ORM's method of retrieving data and set it to the view ($this->data = MyModel->findByColumn(...) etc). If you mean data from different modules, then you'd probably be better off looking at partials or components for elements of a page that can be used across different modules (navigation etc). See the Symfony docs for more details on these.
I'm used to handle static pages in this way.
First I create a new entry in apps/frontend/config/routing.yml:
page:
url: pages/:page
param: { module: page, action: index }
Then I write a "page" module (apps/frontend/modules/page/actions/actions.class.php):
<?php
class pageActions extends sfActions
{
public function executeIndex()
{
$this->page = $this->getRequestParameter("page");
$this->forward404Unless($this->_partialExists($this->page));
}
protected function _partialExists($name)
{
$directory = $this->getContext()->getModuleDirectory();
return (is_readable($directory.DIRECTORY_SEPARATOR."templates".
DIRECTORY_SEPARATOR."_".$name.".php"));
}
}
Last step, put in modules/page/templates/indexSuccess.php this code:
<?php include_partial($page); ?>
So all you have to do from now is to create a partial for each static page ie.
apps/frontend/modules/page/templates/_home.php which you can reach at
http://yousite/pages/home (without the need to add a new routing entry for every page)
You can create a module, e.g. called static and create actions for every static page or only one action that delivers the page depending on a request variable. The only thing this action does is loading a template.
IMHO it would be good if symfony comes with a default module for this.
For example actions of (my custom) module static:
class staticActions extends sfActions
{
public function executeIndex(sfWebRequest $request)
{
if(!$request->hasParameter('site')) {
return sfView::ERROR;
}
$this->site = $request->getParameter('site');
}
}
With this template:
//indexSuccess.php
<?php include_partial($site) ?>
The actual statics sites are all partials.
In my routing.yml looks like this:
# static stuff
about:
url: /about
param: {module: static, action: index, site: about}
This way you only have to create a new partial and a new routing entry when you add a static site and you don't have to touch the PHP code.
Another way to serve static pages without having to write any controller code is to set up the route something like the following:
myStaticPage:
pattern: /pageName
defaults:
_controller: FrameworkBundle:Template:template
template: MyBundle:Home:pageName.html.twig
Then just create your twig template and it should work fine.
Apart from the above, consider having a CMS for static pages, so you won't need technical savy people to mantain them or change them. This depends on the project, of course.
For really static and independent pages you can simply create any file in [pathToYourProjectRoot]/web directory.
It may by i.e. [pathToYourProjectRoot]/web/assets/static_html/about.html.
Then link to the page directly by http://your.site.com/assets/static_html/about.html.