Cakephp, dynamically write variables into css file upon load of view? - php

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

Related

PHP Require method doesn't show any CSS style

I'm recently doing a website for a school project. In order to organize my work, I create a tree folder that keeps all the work organized. It is similar like this:
Back-Office
Pages
Home
home_test1.php
home_test2.php
home_test3.php
Login
Folder_Login
login.php
logout.php
Resources
CSS
style_home.css
style_navbar.css
style_footer.css
JS
script_home.css
script_navbar.css
Sections
navbar.php
footer.php
After all, with the require() method available in PHP, I want to call the "navbar.php" file to the "home_test1.php", "home_test2.php" and "home_test3.php", but the CSS style that is connected with the file "navbar.php" ("style_navbar.php"), doesn't display.
I've tried to change the path of the CSS style in the file "navbar.php" when I require() to the other file ("home_test1.php") and the CSS style shows up, but wont display in other file with a different path. How can I make this work dynamically? Sorry for long post and bad English grammar.
Thank you in advance.
You need to set your css and js files with absolute path instead of relative path
$dir = realpath($_SERVER["DOCUMENT_ROOT"]);
<link rel="stylesheet" href="<?php echo $dir.'/resources/css/style_home.css'; ?>" >
Without physically seeing you code it is quite hard to debug however there is an "obvious" answer that I'll suggest as a starting point.
The important thing to remember is that PHP and HTML are processed in completely different places. PHP executes on the server and should be used to build a full HTML "document" which it gives to the client/browser. The client/browser then reads the document provided and renders it according to HTML standards.
Calling require() will tell PHP to get the file and slot its contents directly where it was called and as it is a CSS file it will need to sit within the style tags. With a lot of modern browsers, if you use require on a file outside of the html tags, the content will be dumped at the top of the screen or simply ignored due to invalid syntax.
Alternatively if you would like to simply use tell the browser to include the CSS file, you could use the good old method of using <link rel="stylesheet" href="/path/to/file">. It's good to know when and when not to use PHP.
PS: You have .css files in your JS directory.
In PHP, there is a global variable containing various details related to the server. It's called $_SERVER. It contains also the root:-
$_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT']
<?php
$path = $_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT'];
<link rel="stylesheet" href="<?php echo $path.= '/Resources/CSS/style_navbar.css';?>" />
?>

Add new CSS style from an external file and different class

I have a page called index.php
<html>
<head>
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="mystyle.css" />
...
<body>
<div class="my_class"></div>
...
</body>
</html>
In mystyle.css there is no declaration for .my_class
I have another file called external_style.css where there is no declaration for .my_class either but there is a class called .new_class
Can not import or append external_style.css - cause it will overwrite other elements.
My question is:
How can I get the properties of .new_class from external_style.css into .my_class without importing the file.
Is there a way to read that file using php?
Is there another better solution?
If .my_class doesn't exist within mystyles.css can you not just take your code from .new_class within external_style.css and create a .my_class in mystyles.css? or have i missed the point?
You may want to look into using a PHP file with a CSS header. This article should get you started: http://sperling.com/examples/pcss/
There are a couple things you can do to achieve what you are trying to accomplish
Move custom layout data to database: Rather than creating custom files for each user store the users custom css information in a database record for the user.
You could easily identify the user and use javascript to update the CSS.
More scalabe style sheets: If importing the the external_style.css is affecting the global layout you should revisit the way you are identifying elements on the page so that does not happen. Then you could simply import the users custom style sheet.
Try using IDs in addition to Classes as well as wrapping sections of content in Divs. Use those identifiers to make sure importing external_style.css does not overwrite everything.

Yii including CSS and JS files

I've been reading on this quite some time...and i'm puzzled -
Can you help on what is the difference between:
Yii::app()->clientScript->registerCssFile(Yii::app()->baseUrl.'/css/some-file.css');
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="<?php echo Yii::app()->request->baseUrl; ?>/css/some-file.css
Is it a performance issue, or just different syntax?
Thanks,
Danny
registerCssFile always registers the file between the <head> tags, even if you call it somewhere in a view.
This is helpful if you care about HTML validation (a <link> in <body> is invalid), but still want to include a CSS file in a view.
registerCssFile actually aids performance, because the CSS is registered only when you want it (and need it).
The way you are using it, it is identical. To verify this, check the source of the page (in your browser) and check the statement that Yii::app()->clientScript->registerCssFile creates.
However, clientScript lets you control the position of the script in the HTML file. Check out: http://www.yiiframework.com/doc/api/1.1/CClientScript#registerScriptFile-detail and look for POS_HEAD, POS_BEGIN, POS_END.
What is probably more important is this: In the MVC philosophy, you want to have everything related to HTML-output in your view-file. Yii::app()->clientScript lets you add CSS and JS files from within your view files. And that is where you want it.

Working with multiple external view files in codeigniter

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.

How to load a css in CodeIgniter?

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

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