Embed a Cakephp form into Wordpress - cakephp

I have a Wordpress blog and I'm developing a backend application using Cakephp.
I want to develop the blog's contact form using cake (since the entered information will be available from the backend app).
Right now, I tried including the cake view into wp using ajax. The problem with this approach is that I either use a Js->submit, which makes attaching files to the form quite complicated, or I use a Form->submit, which makes displaying validation errors problematic. Also, it creates problems with the recaptcha plugin not showing up.
Is there a way of integrating the form using php? I don't need authentication (it is a public form), but I need to be able to show validation errors on the form and upload files on the form.

Actually, you can load any website into a string using CURL, if you load en empty page with a placeholder from your wordpress, you can then use it as your layout
<?php
$url = "http://www.yourdomain.com/emptypage";
$curl = curl_init($url);
curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, TRUE);
$output = curl_exec($curl);
curl_close($curl)
$placeholder = "{{CONTENT}}"
$placeholderPos = strpos($output,$placeholder);
$beginning = substr($output,0,$placeholderPos);
$end = substr($output,$placeholderPos+strlen($placeholder));
echo $beginning;
////// your form //////
echo $end;
?>
You may have to deal with relative path after that, but this should get you started.

So, I finally found a way I think is the best since it uses cake classes.
I created a file new_file.php on webroot that is basically a copy of index.php but instead of using a generic request it requests the specific page I'm looking for:
$Dispatcher = new Dispatcher();
$Dispatcher->dispatch(new CakeRequest('CONTROLLER/ACTION'), new CakeResponse(array('charset' => Configure::read('App.encoding'))));
Of course, you'll have to change 'CONTROLLER/ACTION' to whatever your controller is.
After that, you only have to include the file in a WordPress plugin.
There is only one more change. There are some methods that conflict with WP declarations. PHP will complain when you include the above file. You have to find those method and wrap them into an if to make sure the method is not redeclared. This can break some functionality like localization (function __()) but it is ok if what you are including is not a very complex cake application.
if (!function_exists('methodName')) {
Hopefully the last issue will be solved once Cake 3 is out with namespaces support.

Related

CakePHP - read file from outside webroot

I have a model in /app/Model/User.php where I would like to read a file.
The file is located in /app/View/Emails/html/welcome.html:
$message = file_get_contents('../View/Emails/html/welcome.html');
This works locally but not online. What to change?
You do it wrong, what you try is already covered by the framework. See this, "Sending templated emails". Reading the book is always a good idea. Copy and paste from the book:
Emails are often much more than just a simple text message. In order
to facilitate that, CakePHP provides a way to send emails using
CakePHP’s view layer.
The templates for emails reside in a special folder in your
applications View directory called Emails. Email views can also use
layouts, and elements just like normal views:
$Email = new CakeEmail();
$Email->template('welcome', 'fancy')
->emailFormat('html')
->to('bob#example.com')
->from('app#domain.com')
->send();
The above would use app/View/Emails/html/welcome.ctp for the view, and
app/View/Layouts/Emails/html/fancy.ctp for the layout. You can send
multipart templated email messages as well:

CakePHP - Security - Image and Link Helpers

I just read this quite interesting post about security for CakePHP: Cakephp Security
It says that whenever a helper is used, CakePHP basically takes care security risks unless I turn of escape. I believe I only turn off escape when I want my links to be images, so nesting an image helper line inside a link helper line. For example:
echo $this->Html->link($this->Html->image('logo.png'), "/" , array('id'=>'logo', 'escape' => false));
Is that bad practise? Does that leave me vulnerable? Should I be doing it some other way?
Additionally, is it correct that whenever I output database data on dynamic pages, it needs to be enclosed in htmlspecialchars($myvariable)? I don't understand why I need to do that if I know that my database is clean from "bad stuff" and all of my forms for input into my database uses FormHelper.
In the example code shown you have all static values, no content coming from user so there's no risk.
Similarly for your content coming from database if for eg. all content is managed by site admin and no content from users is saved to database its reasonably safe to echo the content without escaping.

CakePHP Media Plugin Helper problem

I am trying to display an uploaded image with the Media Plugin of CakePHP.
I added the helper to the controller helper array: var $helpers = array('Media.Media');. Then, in my view, I have this code: echo $media−>file($news['Attachment'][0]['dirname'].DS.$news['Attachment'][0]['basename']);. But the problem is that, it outputs this error:
Undefined variable: media− [APP/views/news/view.ctp, line 3]
What could be the problem?
By the way, if a plugin has a model User in app/plugin/users/models/user.php and i create a new model called User in the app/models folder which one will be loaded?
Thanks in advance for any help!
First off if you are using 1.3.x refer to helpers via $this->HelperName->method(), there could be a variable called $media being set in some method. you can check this by doing var_dump($media);
The other option is that something has maybe unset it. Its very strange that you have the helper set but the variable is not set. It could also be due to adding the $helpers array to the wrong controller, you can try add it to app_controller and see if that works. if it does you had it in the wrong place.
If i got your second question correct, and we are talking about auto loading, a plugin controller will first look for the model in its own plugin directory, if it is not found there it will fall back to the app/models directory.
if you are loading it manually via the $uses array, it depends on the version of cake and how you do it. In previous versions 1.x even $uses = array('User'); would load the plugin model as cake would auto add the plugin prefix. This has changed for 2.0 afaik.
For other methods of loading a model, such as $this->loadModel('User); would load from app/models and $this->loadModel('PluginName.User') would load from the app/plugins/plugin_name/models dir.
Edit:
you are right that is funny having the error show $media- and there is the problem. did you copy that code from some site? − is not - you have a utf8 char in the code which is what its complaining about.

How to do form-based file uploads in CakePHP?

I have been looking into this for a while and can't figure it out. Basically I have an add page for my model which you can add a map from a URL or from a file upload. I have got all the fields and validation in but how and where do I manage the uploaded file?? There must be some easy way to do this. Thanks!
Firstly your form needs to be set up to allow file uploads.
<?php echo $form->create(Model, array('type' => 'file')); ?>
This will allow any file inputs to actually upload the file to your server with $form->file(field) or $form->input(field, array('type' => 'file')).
Once the file has been uploaded you should handle everything else from within the Model:
function beforeSave($created) {
extract($this->data[Model][field]);
if ($size && !$error) {
move_uploaded_file($tmp_name, destination);
$this->data[Model][field] = destination;
}
return true;
}
These are only the basics, so be sure to have a play around to find the solution that best fits your needs.
You can use Zend Components to handle the file upload. There is a good example here on my website:
CakePHP file upload using Zend Components
NOTE: MeioUploadBehavior has been deprecated. Instead jrbasso suggests the Upload Plugin.
In addition to the fine answers already given I want to hint about MeioUploadBehavior, currently maintained by jrbasso at github, which has been a great help for me in my own CakePHP project.
You simply add the behavior to your model using the $actsAs field and at the same time specifying any custom preferences. Then create necessary fields (described by supplied docs in detail) in your database, or configure the model to not use any database table. Finally setup the form in your add page, also described in the supplied documentation. The behavior will then take care of the rest for you.

Dealing with Alias URLs in CakePHP

I am rewriting our company website in cakephp, and need to find a way to do the following:
A user enters our site by using one
of the promotional alias URLS that
has been pregenerated for a specific
media advert ( magazine, web
promotion etc )
The URL is checked against a
database of alias URLs, and if an
alias exists, then a specific
tracking code is written into the
session.
I have considered several options, none of which seem suitable for this purpose. They are:
Putting the lookup script in the
beforeFilter() in appcontroller, so
that its included in every
controller. (Writes a session value
so it only perfoms once.)
This option only works for existing contollers, and gives the
Cake 'missing controller' error if a
URL doesn't exist.
Specific routes for each alias in
Routes.php - Works but there are
potentially hundreds of alias urls
added/removed regularly via admin
interface.
Route all site URLs to their own
actions, and having an 'everything
else' rule, for the alias URLs that
maps to my lookup script. - Messy
and I lose the built in Cake
routing.
Custom 404. - I don't want to
return 404's for these urls, as I
feel its bad practice unless they
really don't map to anything.
I really could do with a place in the application flow where I can put this lookup/tracking script, and I'm fairly new to cake so I'm stumped.
EDIT: Also, I know that a subfolder called say 'promo' would easily do this, but I have a lot of legacy URLS from our old site, that need handling too.
Note: I'm making an assumption that your promo URLs are in the form of "domain.com/advert-259" or something like that (i.e. no "domain.com/adverts/advert-259'). That would be just too simple :)
Hopefully, you can use the routing with some regex. Add this to your /config/routes.php and let me know if a different regex will help :)
$controllers = Configure::listObjects('controller');
foreach ($controllers as &$value)
{
$value = Inflector::underscore($value);
}
Router::connect('/:promo', array('controller' => 'promos', 'action' => 'process'), array('promo' => '(?!('.implode('|', $controllers).')\W+)[a-zA-Z\-_]+/?$'));
Now you can handle all your promo codes in PromosController::process().
Basically, it checks for a promo code in url, excluding those in the $controllers array (i.e. your regular routes won't be messed up).
Later on you might want to consider caching the value of Configure::listObjects() depending on the speed of your app and your requirements.
A very interesting question. I think I would use item #3. It's not really that messy -- after all, this typically is handled by the pages controller in my stuff. That's how I'd handle it - hardcode your routes to your controllers in routes.php, then have a matchall route that will work for your promo codes. This allows you to keep legacy URLs, as well as use a lot of the standard cake stuff (you probably will just have to explicitly state each of your controllers routes, not such a chore...) Additionally, it will let you do some cool stuff with 404 errors -- you can put some logic in there to try and figure out where they were trying to go, so you can superpower your 404's.

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