CakePHP $this->element correct usage? - cakephp

I'm trying to make a reusable component (a weekday dropdown box, simple as pie) and am following the advice in http://book.cakephp.org/view/1081/Elements.
According to that page, I should make a blah.ctp file in app/views/elements, and it will be magically accessible in my view code as $this->element('blah').
So I did it. I'm passing the form and field name to my element in the view code:
$this->element(
'weekday_input',
array('form'=>$this->Form, 'fieldname'=>'weekday')
);
Earlier I created a form using $this->Form->create, so I figured I need to pass it to the element explicitly.
And my element code, in weekday_input.ctp:
echo $form->input(
$fieldname,
array(
'options',
array('Sunday'=>'Sunday',...,'Saturday'=>'Saturday')
)
);
(Weekdays in between omitted for brevity.)
Am I using $this->element properly? Is there something more clean available?

You don't have to pass the Form object. Form, Html and other helpers are available in elements (just as in view). Whether or not you want to pass fieldname depends: Do you need to change it?

An element is a bit too simple I expect. Also it is not very testable. Would focus on Helpers, which is a more advanced way of developing this. But there is another solution I would prefer even more:
For this kind of issues it might be more appropriate to extend the formhelper itself. You can see a simple example here:
http://blog.nlware.com/2012/02/07/cakephp-2-0-how-to-extend-the-formhelper/
A full example can be found for example here:
https://github.com/slywalker/cakephp-plugin-boost_cake/blob/master/View/Helper/BoostCakeFormHelper.php
As you asked for a clean solution think about creating a plugin (or check out existing plugins). That will separate the code out of your project more clean. And it will be available for re-use without much issues.
you can find all files needed for a plugin in the same project:
https://github.com/slywalker/cakephp-plugin-boost_cake
And the documentation here:
http://book.cakephp.org/2.0/en/plugins.html

Related

getting the field values of content types from drupal

Here I want to know how to get the field values of my custom content type 'mypop'. I tried all methods in google but I don't know how to use, for example i tried function node_load, I can't able to know where to write this function, what are the parameters and tried EntityFieldQuery too. Can I know the how to do it in brief explaination.
Thanks in Advance.
Definitely a very broad question. Assuming you have the content type 'mypop' created already, think the easiest steps for you would be to:
Make sure you create some content of that content type
Customize the "Manage Display" on that content type and make sure the fields you want are set to visible there
Once you do this, those fields should be visible when you view the nodes of that content type already. If you want to further customize the view, you should probably customize the template file for that specific content type (there's other options but trying to keep this as simple as possible).
To do this, copy the "node.tpl.php" file you'll find on the modules/node folder to your theme templates folder and change it's name to be "node--mypop.tpl.php".
That way, you'll override Drupal's default display template for that specific content type only. Now you can basically tweak it into anyway you want.
Hope this helps!
Thanks a lot Alberto. Its working now! I have another issue too, it also got cleared and now its working fine !Another issue is javascript called automatically when I open views edit for other contents. Now by doing overriding this template file, it also gets cleared. Thank you !
node_load take node id. So in order to use noad_load() function, you should first retrieve node ids. Better if you use noad_load_multiple().
// Query all of the nids of a particular content type.
$nids = db_select('node', 'n')
->fields('n', array('nid'))
->condition('type', 'Article', '=')
->execute()
->fetchCol();
// Get all of the article nodes.
$nodes = node_load_multiple($nids);
You can see the result by calling print_r($nodes). Just write a normal function in you .module file or .inc file. Call it anywhere, your choice. say, in menu callback.

cakephp how to check variable content and all function included?

sorry i was new here so this problem maybe simple.
anyone knows how to check variable content?
like xx($a);
then page shows all relate information about $a. Is CakePHP allowed to do that?
i setup a kit on my cakephp
You might be looking for either var_dump() or print_r()
You can use PHP built-in functions like
var_dump() - displays structured information about variable
print_r() - the same, but preformatted with some differences
get_defined_vars() - returns array with all defined variables
Or use true CakePHP-way
Debugger::dump() - It will print out all properties and methods (if any) of the supplied variable
For more convenience you may use CakePHP Debug Kit plugin, which provides nice toolbar and some useful tools for your purpose.

How to add a custom field into template.php using Zen sub theme

First time poster here, I'm a designer not skilled at all with php and I have a small issue I don't seem to be able to solve. I'm making a site in drupal 7 using a sub theme on zen.
Btw this is a great CMS, even though people say it's really more a developers CMS. I have no trouble to do what I need using views, rules, display suite etc. So a big thank you for all the developers out there making this such a good CMS. But for this apparently simple problem... no module will help me (I think) and I'm kinda stuck.
So here it is: I'd like to add a subtitle next to the title in all my pages.
So what I did was to add a custom field into the content type basic page (machine name: field_sub_title) which is a simple text field.
I uncommented the following line in my template.php
function mytheme_preprocess_page(&$variables, $hook) {
$variables['sub_title'] = t('field_sub_title');
}
Now my question is how do I load the content of my custom field into that variable?
I know i need to change the second part, but I don't have a clue as into what I need to change this.
Displaying the variable into the the page.tpl.php is something I know about so I only need help with the first part.
{EDIT}
Ok I found how to do this :)
I was looking for a solution in the wrong place. I don't need to change any thing in the template.php file.
Just needed to add this bit of code into my page.tpl.php:
<?php
print $node->field_sub_title['und'][0]['value'];
?>
So I'm posting this here for other Drupal newbies struggling with this....
Your solution may work for now, but there may be a more Drupal-y way to handle a problem like this. If you haven't noticed any problems yet, you may find one or more of the following issues down the road:
Someone who doesn't know php or Drupal theming may need to change the way this works.
If you're like me, you may forget where exactly in code this was implemented.
You may see superfluous markup and/or errors on nodes (content) that do not have this sub-title field (ie. event content not having a sub-title field while basic pages and news articles do).
When you add a field to a content type, it will automatically appear anytime content in that content type is displayed. You should be able to add the sub-title field for your page, event or whatever else you need and have it automatically appear in the markup.
You can 'manage display' of a content type to drag and drop the order for fields to appear. You could take it a step further by using a module like Display Suite to add formatting or layout per-content type.
If you feel like this isn't good enough and the markup for the subtitle must be at the same level as the page title (which is rare), at least add an if statement to make your code check to see if the variable is present before trying to print it. I'd also add a new variable and comments for code readability.
<?php
$subtitle = $node->field_sub_title['und'][0]['value'];
if($subtitle){
print $subtitle;
}
?>
Consider using field_get_items or field_view_value, or at least use the LANGUAGE_NONE constant instead of 'und'
See https://api.drupal.org/api/drupal/modules%21field%21field.module/function/field_get_items/7 and https://api.drupal.org/api/drupal/modules!field!field.module/function/field_view_value/7
This has the added benefit of reducing the number of potential security holes you create.

Drupal: D7 rewriting values returned by views

I have a requirement to perform an indexed search across content which must include a couple of tags in the result. The tags must be a random selection. The platform is Drupal 7.12
I have created a view that manages the results of a SOLR search through the search_api. The view returns the required content and seems to work as intended. I have included a couple of Global: custom text fields as placeholders for the tag entries.
I am now looking for a solution to manage the requirement to randomise the tag values. The randomisation is not the issue, the issue is how to include the random values into the view result.
My current approach is to write a views_pre_render hook to intercept the placeholders which appear as fields ([nothing] and [nothing_1]). The test code looks like the following
function MODULE_views_pre_render( &$view )
{
$view_display = $view->display['default'];
$display_option = $view_display->display_options;
$fields = $display_option['fields'];
foreach( $view->result as $result )
{
$fields['nothing']['alter']['text'] = sprintf("test %d", rand(1,9));
}
}
I am currently not seeing any change in the placeholder when the view is rendered.
Any pointers to approach, alternate solutions etc would be gratefully received as this is consuming a lot of scarce time at the moment. Calling print_r( $view ) from within the hook dumps over 46M into a log file for a result set of 2 items.
There are two possible solutions for your task.
First approach is do everything on the template level. Define a template for the view field you want to randomize. In advanced settings of your display go to Theme: Information. Make sure that the proper theme is selected and find the template suggestions for your field. They are listed starting from most general to the most specific and you can choose whatever suits you better.
I guess the most specific template suggestion for your field would be something like this: views-view-field--[YOR VIEW NAME]--[YOUR DISPLAY NAME]--nothing.tpl.php. Create the file with that name in the theme templates directory and in this template you can render what ever you want.
By default this template has only one line:
print $output;
you can change this to:
print sprintf("test %d", rand(1,9));
or to anything else, whatsoever :)
Second approach is to go with Views PHP module. WIth this module you can add a custom PHP field in which you can do whatever you want. Even though the module hasn't been released it seems to work quite well for the most of the tasks and most certainly for such a simple task as randomizing numbers it will work out for sure.
I stumbled upon this while searching for another issue and thought I would contribute.
Instead of adding another module or modifying a template, just add a views "sort criteria" of "Global: Random".

How to use default.ctp in cakephp

I just finished the "15 min Blog Post tutorial" included in the documentation for cakephp. I was asked for another tutorial to change the layout for first tutorial.
However, I am fairly new to MVC programming/Cakephp and I have no real clue how to do so. Well, I know I need "default.ctp" placed in app/views/layouts/ and I presume I need to include
to include my data? . . .
I am really at a loss of what to do. I set up my default.ctp as I mentioned above, but when I go to localhost:9999/posts the layout is still the same. I guess I need to include a stylesheet (and if so, where?)
I guess if someone can point me in the right direction to a beginner's guide to layout styling or how to use it I would greatly appreciate any help.
I would advice you to read the following from the cookbook: Layouts and CSS. Then copy the layout from /cake/libs/view/layouts/ to /app/views/layouts/ and modify it to your needs. After that create you stylesheet (or modify existing one) in /app/webroot/css/ and include it in your layout.
Create in app/View/Layout a file named "my_posts_layout.ctp"
In your PostController set $this->layout = 'my_posts_layout';
This way you should view the content defined on my_posts_layout.ctp.
Lack of stylesheets has no impact here.
How MVC works in CakePHP:
The router dispatches an incoming request to an appropriate Contoller.
The appropriate Controller function executes (no output, just fetching data, setting up variables).
The appropriate view is rendered. In fact, the output of the view is just contained in $content_for_layout.
What you really get back in the browser is in the layout. Therefore you can put your view's output into the layout by echo $content_for_layout in default.ctp. (Of course you can also have different layouts.) In addition, the layout can be enhanced with elements.
I really recomend the CakePHP CookBook, easily found from the CakePHP homepage. Modifying default.ctp should edit your applications layout.
A more specific question (eg. code samples of your default.ctp, expected results etc) might help people provide a better answer than mine.

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