How does Zend link $this->layout()->content with scripts/index/index.phtml?
I think I'm failing to understand the basics of how the pages are supposed to stick together. I've looked at the quick start on the zend site but it's far too simplistic.
So as Tomáš Fejfar explained that's how the $this->layout()->content works. Yet what is interesting is that 'content' is not just a variable in the layout. In fact, 'content' is a key in a View placeholder called 'Zend_Layout'. For this reason, the following snippets are equivalent to echo $this->layout()->content in your layout.phtml:
$placeHolder = Zend_View_Helper_Placeholder_Registry::getRegistry()->getContainer('Zend_Layout');
echo $placeHolder['content'];
// or
echo $this->placeholder('Zend_Layout');
// or
echo $this->placeholder('Zend_Layout')->content;
This can be very useful. What I mean is that you can define some places in your layout.phtml that will be display values of your custom keys from 'Zend_Layout' placeholder. For instance, imagine that you would like to have a layout.phtml and you want to be able to modify text in your footer. You could do this by defining layout.phtml which will contain the following in the footer:
<div id="footer">
<?php echo $this->layout()->myFooterText; ?>
</div>
You could setup a default value for this footer in e.g. your Bootstrap.php. However, if you wanted you could modify this text in your actions as follows;
$this->view->placeholder('Zend_Layout')->myFooterText = 'Some text only for this action';
That's it what I wanted to add. Off course one could think of other scenerios, because $this->view->placeholder('Zend_Layout') is an instance of Zend_View_Helper_Placeholder_Container so you could do other things with Zend_Layout placeholder.
EDIT:
Key 'content' is a default name. You can change it to something else using setContentKey method of Zend_Layout, e.g.:
protected function _initSetNewLayoutContentKey() {
$layout = $this->bootstrap('layout')->getResource('layout');
// instead of 'content' use 'viewoutput'
$layout->setContentKey('viewoutput');
}
With this change, in your layout.phtml you would use echo $this->layout()->viewoutput; instead of echo $this->layout()->content;.
What's rendered in your view (the PHTML file) is saved into the content variable. That can be echoed in the layout template (another phtml file - preferably layout.phtml). And that'S the 'final product' :) (or maybe you want to specify you question more).
Layout is nothing more then a controller plugin which creates its own view after all dispatching has been done so it can take final response object and sets the content property of its view to response body .
So basically in your case buffer of index.phtml , gets stored in response object first then later layout takes this value and change it its own view buffer .
Related
I have deployed an app using cakephp. Now i have some data which i want to render on some logic. This data should be showed as a page including some inputs and other fields.
One thing is to do this in javascript side but it will not be a suitable option to make a whole html in javascript.
Other solution on which i am working is to pass the data to the .ctp file. Get the html and pas this to my content.
I am trying to do this as
$html = $this->render('myview');
$this->set('html', $view);
but it render the myview as a page not as html to be shown to my view.
Follow the code to achieve the same, (this code in your controller's method/action)
//Variables used in view
$data = $this->Admins->newEntity();
// create a builder
$builder = $this->viewBuilder();
// configure as needed
$builder->setLayout('default');
$builder->setTemplate('/Admins/login'); //Here you can use elements also
$builder->setHelpers(['Html']);
// create a view instance
$view = $builder->build(compact('data')); //Pass the variables to the view
// render to a variable
$output = $view->render();
//Print output
pr($output);
die;
From what I understood from your question and comments, you want to render something in a certain place of your view, but you want to put code for that component in separate .ctp file. CakePHP already has built in tools to achieve this - Elements and Cells.
Elements are reusable pieces of code, which resides in src/Template/Element directory. To create an element, simply create new .ctp file (eg. myelement.ctp) in this directory, and output it in your main view using:
<?= $this->element("myelement") ?>
Elements have access to variables passed to view from which are called, but if needed, one can also pass variables as second argument:
<?= $this->element("myelement", ["somevariable" => "somevalue"]) ?>
On the other hand, you have also Cells, which should be used in need to create an reusable component which depends on some logic which should be separated from controller code. Cell consists of two parts - a Cell class, which is equivalent for controller, and template file. It can be baked by:
bin/cake bake cell Sample
This command will create src/View/Cell/SampleCell.php and src/Template/Cell/Sample/display.ctp files. In first of them, a standard controller logic can be performed. In second, you can put HTML and access to passed variables. Cell can be rendered into a view by using:
<?= $this->cell("Sample") ?>
More info can be found in docs:
Elements
View Cells
I have Yii template that structure is:
Include CSS files in
echo $content right after
Include Javascript files (like JQPlot) after $content
What I would like to do is add custom mix of Javascript/PHP code after including all Javascript files. I know this can be done just adding the code to the template.
But I have many pages with custom JS/PHP code and I would like to include only the specific code for that page to avoid long load times.
Can I create new element that works like $content, but it would include for example "js.php" from the same View folder as "index.php"? The "js.php" would be in every view folder I need custom code and contain the js/php mix of code for that specific page.
Thanks for the help!
Clips are your best bet, as #jfrej suggests by pointing you to a forum topic where clips are discussed.
Under conventional circumstances, every controller has associated a folder where all its views are placed, and it is the case that you want to include at the end of the layout (this is how they are refered, rather than templates) some PHP+Javascript content that is common to all the actions in the controller.
I would override CController::afterRender() method to capture the content for you clip; lets call your clip controller_content:
afterRender(string $view, string &$output)
$this->beginClip('controller_content');
// output here any content you want to capture into your clip
// e.g. renderPartial, echo, etc.
...
$this->endClip();
parent::afterRender($view, $output);
}
Then, in your layout, you would render your clip after all the stuff that is always there, e.g.:
// register your CSSs
// output $content variable
// register Javascript
...
<?= $this->clips['controller_content'] ?>
Of course, there are various ways for you to generate your clip content. Here I overrode the CController::afterRender() method, but you could also use filters, behaviors or any other approach that best suits your needs.
You can try :
Yii::app()->clientScript->registerCssFile(Yii::app()->baseUrl.'/css/example.css');
Yii::app()->clientScript->registerScriptFile(Yii::app()->baseUrl.'/css/example.js');
You can call it from controller
I am developing a Zend MVC application.
Sometimes I like to echo some text just for quick and dirty debugging. e.g
<?php
class MyClass {}
echo('hello world - yes this script is included');
I can echo 'debug-text' in my bootstrap> But, when text is echoed in my model or controllers it is NOT being rendered in the output.
I am using Zend 1.9.5 and using Zend Layout with MVC
Is there a setting somewhere that is suppressing all ''non-view script rendered'' output?
You can also use die() instead of echo :) it will work. Or use Zend_Log and output writer like this:
$writer = new Zend_Log_Writer_Stream('php://output');
Output buffering may be the culprit. Try:
echo 'my debug output';
flush();
If viewRendering is turned on, it's probably looking for the view/scripts/ to render and possibly not displaying your echo statements.
You could try to turn viewRendering off the given controller and see if that helps.
viewRenderer->setNoRender()
I am answering this question because I came back to the same code , 10 months later , and it confused me again.
I was in the context of a Default Module, Index Controller, and Index Action.
I wanted to echo some simple text as a quick way to see what was happening in the code:
class IndexController extends Zend_Controller_Action
{
public function indexAction()
{
//home page
echo '<h1>hello world</h1>';
//set the special home page layout
$this->_helper->layout()->setLayout('home-page');
}
Trouble was - the echoed text was just not showing up.
It worked in other controllers , but not this one. It was driving me crazy.
Now - I've worked out the problem.
I was using a special layout for this particular control action... a 'home page layout'.
In my home page layout I was not rendering any view script. All the content and design was in the layout. Because the home page is a special , unique page, there was no need to separate into a two step view. For this reason I had no reason to need a view script. But, I did create a 'views\scripts\index\index.phtml' to keep ZF from complaining. I did not however, render it in my layout - cos it was not needed.
Any echoed output is captured into the layout()->content (automatically assigned by the layout from the 'default' response segment). Because I was not echoing out that segment, it behaved as if the echoed text was being suppressed.
To solve the problem , i simply had to ensure that i was echoing out the content segment.
i.e.
<html>
<head>
...
</head>
<body>
... my home page html...
<?php echo $this->layout()->content ?>
... my home page html...
</body>
</html>
which, with my debug text being echoed too... would render as:
... my home page html...
<h1>hello world</h1>
... my home page html...
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.