Complex Model Structure in Cakephp - cakephp

Question

I am creating a site that allows users to add a number of various items to their pages. These items can be very different from each other, such as text, images, numbers, etc. To handle this, I have one table that stores one entry for each item. The table has an id, the location of the item on the page, and the type of the item. I then have one table for each type of item which holds the more specific information about that item.
What I want to do is to set up an association so that when the page loads, it grabs the items from the main table in order - which is simple - and then also grabs the associated information from the proper table of specific information.
An example main_table could be:
id | location | type
1 | 1 | text
2 | 2 | image
3 | 3 | plot
4 | 4 | question
The table for text items may look like:
id | text |
1 | aaa |
2 | bbb |
The table for plots may look like:
id | type | datasets |
1 | bar | 3
2 | scatter | 2
So, can I set up an association where the main_data model pulls in the one associated file from the proper table? I could set up a separate model that selected the table for the specific information based on a passed in variable and set the source, but I am not sure how you would pass the variable with the type information to the model, nor am I sure if I am approaching this properly?
Thanks
PS
I had thought of the obvious - to combine the items into one table and simply have empty fields for everything not related to that item for each entry. So a text entry would still have columns for plot stuff, but they wouldn't be filled, etc. However, I wanted to be less wasteful of space - unless everyone thinks it would work better.

Answer 1

Sorry I don't have the reputation to comment for clarification, but this is what I made of your question. I think you're overthinking it...
The one thing that sticks out about your question, is that things are going to get very messy with the way you're approaching it.
In my opinion the best way to handle this is to give each item type it's own table then associations in the model definitions.
This is how your tables will look like, remember CakePHP tables need to be plural and user_id is deliberately titled as such.
Users
id | username
1 | example
Questions
id | user_id | text
1 | 1 | this is a question
Plots
id | user_id | text
1 | 1 | this is plot
This in your app/Model folder you will need files called User.php & Question.php & Plot.php (singular naming convention) that should look something like this
User.php
<?php
public $hasMany = array(
'Question',
'Plot'
);
?>
Question.php
<?php
public $belongsTo = 'User';
?>
Plot.php
<?php
public $belongsTo = 'User';
?>
Once you have set up the above, you will be able to easily access Plots and Questions in your views, I've provided below a snippet of a potential users controller and expected usage you can expect to use... learn to use debug() in CakePHP it's fantastic.
Controller/UsersController.php
<?php
...
public function index() {
$this->set('users', $this->paginate());
}
...
?>
View/Users/index.ctp
<div>
<?php
foreach ($users as $user):
debug($user);
echo $user['Question']['text'];
echo $user['Plot']['text'];
endforeach;
unset($user);
?>
</div>
After reading your question again, you mention "order" and "location". You can handle this by adding a column for "date_created" and "page_position" to each different table. I still feel like you overcomplicated your solution, and I hope I didn't miss something.