Sorry about the question title, but I couldn't find a more appropriate way to phrase this.
I am currently building a CakePHP powered website and I'm not quite sure how to approach the following issue. The website looks something like the follwing mockup:
.
The greyed out areas are part of the layout, because their content does not change between views. In the sidebar, I have a collection of ads who are linked to several models. I need controller logic to determine the picture associated with an ad. Also, the ad list needs to be dynamic. Where should I put the logic for building the sidebar?
I've thought about:
putting the logic into the AppController (beforeFilter / afterFilter) - the problem is I can't use the controller logic I need (the other controllers inherit from AppController, I'm not sure how to use them there).
making a component - is it okay to build components that rely on controllers?
replicating the sidebar code in all controllers that render views - this seems kind of stupid to me.
What is the Cake way for this?
Update
After some reading and experimenting, I've gotten to refactoring most of it.
I obtained the best performance by moving the logic for building my ads in the model (eliminating the component that retrieved the pictures) and not using requestAction. It's almost three times faster and the code looks much better.
I've done something similar for data-driven navigation. I put my logic in AppController::beforeRender and haven't had any problems. I'm not sure I understand your concern related to controller inheritance. I retrieve my menus via:
$menus = $this->NavMenuItem->groupByMenu();
$this->set( compact( 'menus' ) );
I then created an element that renders the menu. It's executed by the layout via:
<?php echo $this->element( 'navigation', array( 'id' => 'secondary', 'menu' => $menus['SECONDARY'] ) ) ?>
If that doesn't help, maybe you can further explain your issue with controller inheritance in a comment.
I guess the answer is requestAction in case the results are cachable:
http://book.cakephp.org/view/434/requestAction
It can be done in this way:
Create an element that will help in layout of the Ad Block
Create one or more controller that will generate the data required for rendering of the block
Use requestAction for getting the data out of the models and into the element.
Check the cake book, there is an example of an element where data from Post Model is used to display top/latest 5 posts. Your requirement, I feel, is very similar to it.
Alex,
you're getting a SQL error because the build() function has to be in the Sidebar model, not controller. Also, you don't necessarily need to use $user = array('Sidebar'); you could calling Sidebar in all of your models with this:
$Sidebar = ClassRegistry::init('Sidebar'); and then $Sidebar->find();, $Sidebar->build(); etc.
Or, if you only need to call the build() function from the Sidebar model, you could do this:
$sidebar = ClassRegistry::init('Sidebar')->build();
$this->set('sidebar', $sidebar);
Cheers.
Related
I'm programming in wxpython and I'm trying to use the mvc model. But I'm stuck with a lost controller :) I'll explain.
A have a panel which calls a controller. I do some things. then I destroy my controller and my panel. Well I try.
del self.tempMApanel.controller
self.tempMApanel.Destroy()
What I know for sure is that the controller isn't linked anymore with the panel because if I 'print' the controller I get an error that says main object has no attribute controller:
print "self.tempMApanel.controller: ",self.tempMApanel.controller #'Main' object has no attribute 'controller'
At a certain moment I recreate the panel with a new controller. But when I send a message (with pub.Sendmessage) to do something in the controller, the message is picked up by the old controller which isn't connected to a panel and the program complains (ofcourse :) )
SO my specific question is, can you 'kill' a controller and is it possible to have a 'lost', 'single', 'flying' controller?
The past 2 days programming was lifted to another dimension of difficult. All the virtual connections ... sometimes it is difficult to keep track and it is difficult to explain and ask for help. So I hope it is clear what I'm trying to say.
tx in advance and I hope there are some geniuses who can help me!
My day is so good!! I was talking about my 'lost' controller problem with our IT-guy and he said you use a subscriber, maybe your reference to your controller is still in there somewhere. And indeed, the controller was added to a list, so I had to remove the controller from this list and then I could remove my view.
I'm so relieved! The last 3 days there were so many problems in my program and I solved them all but this one. But now I can move on the next part.
So my advice is, always look for references if you see this kind of problem.
I'm a developer and I am very confident with MVC pattern and have already developed a lot of webapp from scratch using php framework like symfony or yii.
I'm a little bit confused about joomla mvc and terminology and after googling a lot, read joomla book extensions guide, read on joomla website my doubt are still there.
What is confusing for me is the component mvc structure and how I have to set up "my way of think" about joomla mvc, for doing the things in the joomla way.
In particular I am used to reasoning in terms of controller/action (like in symfony and yii framework)
So the final list of all my webapp url will be
controller1/action1
controller1/action2
controller1/action3
controller2/action1
controller2/action2
Each controller's action will decide what view to render and what layout to use for showing the view.
In particular in these frameworks, the definition of a layout is exactly the mean of a layout. And the view is the "core part" of the page.
So I can have a view with a list of users and I can put this view inside a mobile layout or a desktop layout, or to build a view for mobile and put it only in the mobile layout and so on.
The final result about directory structure in my webapp is something similar to the following:
controllers/
controller1
controller2
controller3
models/
modelForTableA
modelForTableB
views/
controller1/
viewForAction1
viewForAction2
layouts/
mobileLayout.php
desktopLayout.php
and for me is very clear to understand.
So finally my questions are:
how would be the directory structure in joomla?
what are in joomla the definition of view, layout and task?
I need to clarify that I do not need an explaination about MVC works in general, but if I would achieve the same result as before, how I have to organize my code and my work?
Suppose that I want to build a component with the following "url"
userController/addUser
userController/editUser
userController/listUsers
userController/viewUserDetail
anotherController/addOperation
anotherController/editOperation
anotherController/myNonCrudOperation
Thank you very much
Routing in Joomla is slightly different. The SEF URLs are built from menu items, which in turn point to a View/Layout combination.
This turns things around: a controller is not bound to a specific View/Layout.
Let's make an example of the flow with the addUser functionality you mentioned as an example; I'll be referring to these files (but you'll have plenty more):
/controllers/user.php
/models/user.php
/views/useradd/view.html.php
/views/useradd/tmpl/default.php
/views/useradd/tmpl/default.xml
/controller.php
/router.php
As you can see the layouts are inside each view's tmpl folder.
router.php
Let's start from this last file: router.php defines our custom SEF rules so, after Joomla passes the call to our component (usually with the params
?option=com_componentname) we can takeover and interpret the URL as we wish. It is a bit hard to get started with but does provide the most flexibility and power. We don't really need to implement it at all for this simple example: so back to our registration now.
First step: show the "new user" form.
You would typically bind this to a menu item, pointing to the /views/useradd/tmpl/default.php; the /views/useradd/tmpl/default.xml contains the definition of the layout so it's available in the menu manager. Very often there is only one layout per view.
Control is passed to the view /views/useradd/view.html.php , and the view will then load an instance of its own model (automatically chosen based on the view name, you can load other models of course) to gather any initialization data.
The view then renders the layout, and presents it to the user.
The layout's responsibility includes generating a form with an appropriate action (endpoint) and security tokens if appropriate:
<form action="index.php?option=com_mycomponent">
<input type="hidden" task="user.save">
<?php echo JHtml::_('form.token');?>
as you see it doesn't really matter if you want to use <input or params on the url, and you can most often mix them.
Form interaction
For autocompletion the form may need to invoke some backend controller methods, i.e. the method emailAvailable() in the /controllers/user.php
It does not make sense to have such functionality indexed, so we'll invoke the method directly with a non-SEF url:
index.php?option=com_ourcomponent&task=user.emailAvailable
followed by any other parameter. This will work in both get and post.
The controller /controllers/user.php's emailAvailable() method will return a json structure and then invoke exit() as we don't want the CMS to kick in at all. An alternative solution is to add the param &format=json in the call.
{"email":"johndoe#example.com", "available":true}
Saving the data
When the user submits the form, processing is first handled by the controller since a task is specified. (see above task=user.save). Joomla will invoke the method save() in the controller /controllers/user.php.
This time, however, our controller is responsible for returning information to the user. After processing the data, it may choose to re-render the registration form showing an error, or a thank you page. In either case the controller simply sets the redirect, letting Joomla handle the rendering when appropriate.
$this->setRedirect(JRoute::_('index.php?option=com_yourcomponent&view=useradd', false));
More control
Each time a controller task is not specified, the display() method of the main controller is invoked. You can add custom logic there.
Joomla fires several events during a view rendering; these can be intercepted by a system plugin or - if you add in the calls - other kinds of plugins as well. You may even create your own types of plugins. Do not try to instantiate a view manually from a controller, as this may inhibit plugin firing.
Small insight,
1) Directory Structure
controllers/
controller1
controller2
controller3
models/
modelForTableA
modelForTableB
views/
layout1
2) View and layout and task
check this answer
3) More routing techniques with SEF.
Hope it helps.
solved with this. I cannot delete this question because there already exists other answer.
Could any moderator close or delete this? Thank you
https://joomla.stackexchange.com/questions/18774/joomla-terminology-view-layout-task-and-component-development/18799#18799
I'm still learning Laravel and I'm working on a small project to help me understand better. In the project, I am in need of a global array, so that I may display it or its attributes on every view rendered. sort of on a notification bar, so that each page the user visits, he/she can see the number of notifications (which have been fetched in the background and are stored in the array).
I have done some research, and realized that I have to fetch and compile the array in a view composer I think. But everywhere I go, I cant seem to understand how to make a view composer.
I need to fetch the relevant rows from the database table, and make the resulting array available to each view rendered (I'm thinking attaching it somehow to my layouts/default.blade.php file.). Please help, any and all advice is greatly appreciated:)
You can now inject services on your view
More info here: https://laracasts.com/series/whats-new-in-laravel-5-1/episodes/2
You have to use Sub-Views of laravel blade. I guess your functionality is like a sidebar or like a top bar which will be rendered at every page.
//Your Controller pass data
class YOUR_CONTROLLER extends Controller {
public function index()
{
$data = YOUR_DATA;
return view('YOUR_VIEW_FILE', get_defined_vars());
}
}
//In Your View File
#extends('LAYOUTS_FILE')
#section('YOUR_SECTION')
#include('YOUR_SUB_VIEW_FOR_NOTIFICATION')//You need not pass any data passed all data will be available to this sub view.
#endsection
In your sub view
//Do what ever you want looping logic rendering HTML etc.
//In your layout file just yield or render the section that's it
#yield('YOUR_SECTION')
More explanation can be found Including Sub-Views
I am trying to create posts with comments with CodeIgniter and I am trying to add voting for the comments with + and -.
But my problem is not actually this functionallity but more exactly creating the link and the method in controller/model for this.
I understand that there is some kind of link to methods.
If I have something like this:
public function like() {
echo 'Test Function';
}
and when I create link like this one sitename.com/posts/first-post/like theoritecally I will see blank page with "Test Function" text (and of course if I write proper routing rule but I cannor for now).
I can see a blank page with this working echo 'Test Function', but does this mean I have to load every methods and views for the entire page if I want to display the entire webpage with all the elements? I think that I mistake something very serious here but I don't know what.
The example with the "Create news" tutorial in ellislab.com didnt help me. They show something similar I think with /create/ section in the URL and create() methods.
If I have many links with functionallities do I have to add new routing rules for all of them? I really tried to search in Google and everywhere but I didnt find anything related.
Sorry for this lame question.
You need to use Ajax call and on callback you have to increase or decrease the count. For creating a link , once page is loading render the data and provided the default link like
for + http://<site.com>/<controller>/like?totalLike=<36>
for - http://<site.com>/<controller>/unlike?totalunLike=<3>
Once user will click + link then by using Ajax, call the controller method link/unlike and increase or decrease the count and repopulate the link again with fresh counter.
Hope it will resolve your problem.
I know how to use Zend_Acl to allow certain resources to certain usergroups but how do i use it to allow only specific parts of the page to be shown? For example
I have a button to delete a post via AJAX on the page but i only want to show the button to Admins only. I can use Zend_Acl to block access to the controller post/delete but i can't use it to block the button from showing.
// in controller
$this->view->allow_delete_post = $acl->isAllowed($role, 'delete_post');
.
// in template
<? if ($this->allow_delete_post): ?>[button html]<? endif; ?>
Would that not do it?
You can also write a custom static ACL class which you can then call directly from within your view script.
Since ACL is normally handled at plugin level it means that if your visitor is seeing the view then ACL has already allowed the resource, therefor inside your view you can now do something like this...
if(My_Custom_Acl::getIsAllowed('some_resource', 'delete_post_action'){
I did not specify the role name in the custom getIsAllowed() method, because at this point ACL is already suppose to know the user's Identity and the Role.
Hope this helps
Although Christof gave a good solution, an alternative is to split the views. Although this starts to violate DRY, when you have about 200 different admin things/controls, it's getting heavy in the view - thus splitting the view with $this->render('view') and $this->render('edit') for permissions from the controller is sometimes easier. Then only the edit view script has the edit links. But again, it's DRY, so not optimal, but an alternative. I guess you have to weigh it up, which one is more DRY, repeating the ACL check or the stuff in 2 views...