Could someone tell what is good logic for creating custom helper for Views?
What I would like to accomplish is...
load header
load main navigation (static for all pages)
load some widgets etc. (static for all pages)
load content/main pages (dynamic)
and in the end, load footer of course
Could someone point me to the solution?
Thanks a lot, in advance!
This question gives some explanation to the method dqhendricks describes. It includes code examples showing how to use $this->load->view() to return the view to a variable instead of outputting it to the browser, how to include sub-views, and using a specific view as your main template. It's the best way I've found of handling view logic. Getting the hang of CodeIgniter - Templating / loading views
Some people will create a master template, then pass the sub content's view name in the data object. The master template will call the header view, footer view, etc, and use the data array to dynamically display the correct sub content view.
For a Template library that is more actively developed than Collin's (linked by predrag.music) try out mine:
https://github.com/philsturgeon/codeigniter-template
His is good but this supports modules, themes, mobile version variations of themes and plenty more.
you could use inheritance chaining (with a custom controller class or with an included extra class that extends controller that you extend from your controllers instead of the controller class) to make a common controller hub for all pages that has a method for the top stuff, and a method for the bottom stuff.
If you need something for the reference this one is good:
http://williamsconcepts.com/ci/codeigniter/libraries/template/reference.html
Related
I currently have a partial called header.php which holds my site navigation among other things. Within this header site navigation is currently hard coded. This hard coded navigation could be set dynamically from the data base however.
My plan is to create a custom helper class, in here will be a function which queries a model and returns the dynamic navigation correctly formatted.
I will then load the helper in my view (header.php), like so:
$this->load->helper('nav helper');
echo all_the_nav();
My question is, is this the correct approach to use in this instance? Information with regards to helper classes is conflicting, some sources state it's not advisable, others state it's fine.
The website I'm working on has a navigation menu item called categories which is a drop-down containing some entries from the db (the users can adjust the categories from the admin panel.) The navigation is located in a base.html.twig file which is extended by all other twig files.
Question: What's the best way to get those entries? The only way that comes to my mind is use a call to {{ render(controller(...)) }} which would create a new request, what's a little overkill in my opinion and will slow the page in general down. Is there a better way to do it? Maybe an event which is called on every request and is able to transfer data to the view file?
You have two good options to achieve this :
Use render() in your twig template to call a specific method from a controller (as you said in your message)
Create a twig extension to render your menu, it's very simple : http://symfony.com/doc/current/cookbook/templating/twig_extension.html
In my opinion you should use the first option (a controller), since you only need to render your menu 1 time. Twig extension are better designed to be reused in several templates.
About your performance concern, don't worry, all you need is to cache your menu since it won't change often, and invalid the cache when the menu is updated in your backoffice.
Regards
I am working on my SaaS app which is going to require a Custom ViewModel to be built to populate widgets (left,center,right,footer, etc)
I started off using a BaseController
`class BaseController extends AbstractActionController {`
But since I am going to try to use modules like ZfcUser etc I was wondering can I create a module that builds the ViewModel and if so where/how should I hook into the event to not break forwards/redirects?
My thought is build the larger view model without interfering with normal controller behaviors. The controllers would just pass back their normal array() for the viewmodel and it would be placed it
`<?php echo $this->content; ?>`
Ok clarification on a website you generally have Header, Footer, Content and say Left Nav. So the footer has 3 columns Login Box, Lastest News, and twitter feed, the left nav has Navigation and some ad's
All this really doesnt pertain to the Controller and Action being called so I am trying to find the best place to fetch the ViewModel and how then build and populate with all these external entities (login template,twitter, Nivo Slider) and replace.
Then when the controller returns its array() have it replace the $this->content in the layout
Putting all this in each Action would be huge and would break outside module use.
I suggest to using zf2plugin, but it works with zend forward helper and maybe you don't want this.But there is a closure result mode that you can generate some dynamic content ..
Try it, hope be useful.
you maybe want to create viewhelpers located in modules like a TwitterFeed-Module. the view helper would access a service from the same module.
The TwitterFeed Service would simply request the feed from twitter (and ideally cache it for an hour or so). the viewhelper would just render the data as needed or use a viewscript for rendering or return the raw data to be processed in the layout itsself.
You have the URL:
http:///www.site.com/controller/method/values/1/2/3
Do I have to always have the controller being called or can I have the view being called and instantiate the controller inside the view or in a bootstrap file referring to this view?
What I don't get it is if I need more than 1 controller on the view, how to archive that?
For example:
On my index page I want run a simple CMS, where the admin can change the text blocks and images of the site. That would be on the content management controller.
On my index page I also got the latest added products vitrine, what would be controlled by the controller products.
If I define www.site.com/contentmanagement or www.site.com to run the contentmanagement controller, how the product controller would be called?
Also, another example. On my menu I got a link to a page called aboutus, that would be a simple page and the only feature needed would be the content management controller to manage the texts blocks.
If I follow the pattern Im reading all over the place I will end with a link like:
http://www.site.com/contentmanagement/method/aboutus
?
Kinda lost here cause surely this URL will look weird. Would be much easier to have the URL calling the view http://www.site.com/aboutus and a boot file where I can tell the controller that should be loaded when the surfer is there ...
bootstrap would look like:
switch($view)
case: index
controller load contentmanagement
controller load product
case: aboutus
controller load contentmanagement
I appreciate any help or a light here, thanks.
by the way, Im coding in PHP.
Hm, if you want to have text blocks and images of the site (one controller), and products vitrine (second controller), then call the methods you need in one controller..
I would do it this way: when you request index page with all the elements you mentioned above, actually one controller is called, and it decides which view to show.. so in that controller, you call the all methods that you need, get the data, and pass it to the view.. if the methods are called from other controllers, just call that methods and get the data.. i often make some static methods in controllers, which I can call anywhere, so I don't have to instantiate whole object..
E.g. you call www.site.com/contentmanagement, controller is called, which will display index view, and in that controller, you call all methods you need, prepare the data, and pass that data to the final view which will be displayed..
Do I have to always have the controller being called or can I have (..blah blah..)?
It kinda depends on what you understand by "call".
Controller needs an ability to change state of both View and Model(s).
And each View need ability to request data (in Model2 MVC) from Model(s).
Thought Controller should not cause the rendering of View (which is common in all the RoR sycophants) much like View has not business in executing actions on the Controller.
What I don't get it is if I need more than 1 controller on the view, how to archive that?
Views and Controllers should have 1:1 relationship. If your view need more then one controller, you might want to look into HMVC architecture.
For example: On my index page I want run a simple CMS, (.. more blah .. ) how the product controller would be called?
CMS should be a separate application ( or at least module ) with multiple controllers.
If I follow the pattern Im reading all over the place I will end with a link like: http://www.site.com/contentmanagement/method/aboutus ?
Why not just http://site.com/cms/content/2/edit (where 2 is the ID for "about us" page). There is no law which states that URL structure for site administration must mirror the publicly available page .. hell .. it can actually cause increased vulnerability.
I am going to try to walk
What I don't get it is if I need more than 1 controller on the view,
how to archive that?
For example: On my index page I want run a simple CMS, where the admin
can change the text blocks and images of the site. That would be on
the content management controller. On my index page I also got the
latest added products vitrine, what would be controlled by the
controller products. If I define www.site.com/contentmanagement or
www.site.com to run the contentmanagement controller, how the product
controller would be called?
Having the URL to contains the controller's name is definitely nice, but it is not the requirement for MVC. So you don't have to necessary map your controller to the URL itself. A classic MVC does not tie itself to a particular naming convention, so you could call your product controller via different URL which then process the product and show the view for the product.The important for MVC is to have one controller that deals with sets of model and resulting in one view as the presentation layer. In your particular example, your entry point seems to be a single controller that interacts with both ContentManagement and Product Class/Module and the resulting interaction produce a single view.
bootstrap would look like:
switch($view)
case: index
controller load contentmanagement
controller load product
case: aboutus
controller load contentmanagement
Thus your original interaction above is not completely off, except that you are not really calling two controllers, but rather doing the following upon hitting index:
Load a controller, let's call this one IndexController
Load ContentManagement module to get the related content, you might want to put the info as part of your Model for the Index page
Load Product module to get related products, again put this into your Model
Pass the Model containing the info for rendering the page into the View
In your View, you render the Model that contains both Content from ContentManagement module and Product list from the Product module thereby producing a single view
If I follow the pattern Im reading all over the place I will end with
a link like: http://www.site.com/contentmanagement/method/aboutus ?
This is again not a requirement, you should follow what makes sense and easier for the users. Also, if you are required to follow the conventions, you could always make your URL pretty by using URL mapping.
What you are looking for is called HMVC and there are a couple of frameworks for that out there, like Kohana.
Also see this question:
What is the HMVC pattern?
I have a "standard" page layout.
A header, a footer, a main block of content on the left hand side and a sidebar on the right hand side.
Now this is all well and good, except the sidebar is replicated in each and every controller, but needs a controller to function. Sometimes the user might be logged in and therefore there will be some working out of name and such there. Also there is going to be a shopping cart there which will run from a MySQL database.
I don't want to replicate this code in each of my controllers.
How would I make a controller that will build the sidebar, load the view and everything that I can then "include" (like I would include a view) into the page.
I can forsee the creation of a sidebar class/object which I could instantiate and "add to the view" as it were.
How am I supposed to do this?
Thank you
Sounds like Modular Extensions-HMVC might be a good solution for you. The wiki I linked includes examples.
When I've had this issue in Codeigniter in the past I've built a hook that loads post_controller_constructor, executes some logic and then loads a sidebar.php view. It's fairly simple and doesn't require all that much effort.
The only issue is that if you're not using templating then it may mess with the order in which you call views. For example if you're used to:
public function index()
{
$this->load->view("header.php");
$this->load->view("my_awesome_page.php", $this->data);
$this->load->view("footer.php");
}
Then you'll have to alter it to be aware that the sidebar will be the last thing called and put the footer in there. Usually I'll have the Hook check the CI Object for a variable to see if there's a sidebar required and then if not just spit out footer.php anyway.
I'm fairly confident hooks are what you're looking for though.
I eventually created a library which did the stuff I needed. This works well. Libraries can be made effectively like simple controllers and included into them anywhere. :)