I am new to Code Igniter and I wish to know if there is anything that works like MasterPages do on .NET.
Also i was wondering where should i keep my public files, like scripts, styles and images.
Greetings, and Thank you in Advance
Master views aren't built into the framework. To get a similar effect you can load the subview and pass that to the master view.
Controller :
class Items extends Controller
{
function show($id)
{
$item = $this->item_model->get_item($id);
// Load the subview
$content = $this->load->view('item/show', array('item' => $item), true);
// Pass to the master view
$this->load->view('master_view', array('content' => $content));
}
}
Master view :
<div id="header">
</div>
<div id="content">
<?php echo $content; ?>
</div>
<div id="footer">
</div>
To answer your other question, I keep all Javascript scripts and CSS in directories in the root of my project.
I'm not sure that they have anything exactly like a master page. CodeIgniter is more of an MVC framework and uses views and controls to build up pages. If you're new to CodeIgniter, net.TutsPlus has a real good series of videos that goes into some depth about how to use the framework for different scenerios. Take a look under the section called "Catch Up" to see the list of videos.
Hope this helps out some and good luck in your project.
try this library
http://www.williamsconcepts.com/ci/codeigniter/libraries/template/?v141
I am not too familiar with .NET or CodeIgniter, but it appears the same functionality can be provided by judicious use of Views. The first sentence on that page says:
In fact, views can flexibly be embedded within other views (within other views, etc., etc.) if you need this type of hierarchy.
This seems like exactly what a MasterPage provides. And in fact, most PHP frameworks and templating systems provide the same features.
In answer to your second question, you may want to keep your scripts, styles, and images in separate folders off of the web root. I believe that URLs are relative to index.php, so keeping your resources near there would make them easier to refer to in your views. Another option is to take a look at the Asset Helper.
Related
I'm new to PHP and want to apply a specific class to the title of my page depending on what part of the site the viewer is browsing.
For instance, I want to apply the class "blog" to the if the viewer is at domain.com/blog OR domain.com/blog/post-1 so on and so forth BUT apply the class "pics" if they're viewing domain.com/pics or domain.com/pics/gallery-1 etc etc.
I found something that could be modified to serve my needs using javascript here
but I figured seeing as I'm using PHP already, it'd make more sense to keep this sort of thing server side.
As I say, I'm new to PHP. I've experimented with some regular expressions, but to no avail.
EDIT: Sorry not to be more specific in my first post, I am using wordpress as my CMS - this is my first stackoverflow post, I trust you can forgive me :)
<?php
if (substr($_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'], 0,5)=='/pics') {
$h1class='someclass';
}
The it depends on how you're putting the class in the tag, might be like this
?><h1 class="<?php echo $h1class; ?>">...
Rather than putting a class in based on the page, I would suggest having seperate CSS files for home.css, blog.css, whateverelse.css. Of course, these would be in addition to some sort of default.css or site.css or whatever that would contain the styles used across the site.
You can then build a function/method to create the CSS calls in the HTML header. I usually have a "Page" object that builds the actual HTML page, and a "get_css" method that spits out the CSS calls.
It's hard to get more specific without knowing how you currently build pages.
Here is the solution I ended up crafting. Credit to #m.buettner for pointing me towards explode().
<h1 id="title-text" class="
<?php #returns the category as a class
$url = array();
$url = explode('/', get_permalink());
echo $url[3];
?>
mono in-case-404">
SITE
</h1>
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.
Whenever I start a new project I find myself remaking and rethinking my self made template library. I use some influences from dom manipulation, but don't want to make too much functions so that it still loads fast.
This is how my current template system looks like:
This is a layout file:
<body>
<div id="content">
<block:content>This is a default text</block:content>
</div>
<div id="sidebar">
<widget:advertisement type="wide" />
<block:sidebar this_param="is_passed_on" />
</div>
</body>
As you can see I made 2 sort of "extra" tags that will be replaced when eventually publishing the template. I load this layout like this:
$this->template->load("layout");
I then can manipulate the block tags like this:
$this->template->content = "I'm overwriting the default text";
$this->template->content->prepend("I forgot something");
$this->template->sidebar->view("viewfile_1", array(/*data*/));
$this->template->sidebar->view("viewfile_2", array(/*data*/));
I can set text manually, I can load multiple views into 1 block, I can use a few dom-like manipulating functions like prepend, append, ...
I can even extend the template with more layout options like:
$this->template->content->extend("2columns");
This layout file might look like:
<div><block:left/></div>
<div><block:right/></div>
So that instead of the content block I now have an extra left and right block to put content in.
I have also created a widget tag that loads the specific widget class (/widgets/advertisement in this case). The optional parameters added in the tags are passed on to the views files and/or widget display function together with the direct passed data array.
In short, this is how my system now works. I haven't really found other systems like this to get inspiration from. Could you guys give me advice on anything so I can put together one decent system that I can keep using?
My approach is:
Create main layouts for each page type on a layouts/ folder (think Wordpress layouts for home, archive, single post, single page)
Create common bits of interface in a common/ folder (think header, footer, sidebar, widget_XX, widget_YY)
Use Phil Sturgeon's Template Library (or Spark!) to handle the views.
On each controller I load all the data needed for rendering in $this->data and I pass that object to the view
Hope this helps! Good luck.
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.