I'm trying to create a menu in cake php where I can also know how many articles are inside the section, should I use a manual query, or does exist some existing method to do it?
My site menu:
- Works (12)
- Photos (35)
- Stuff (7)
- Contacts
My problem is also I didn't get how I can access to data like this for every view, this should be a main menu, so I should use this in every view but If i put it in default.ctp, every model deosn't exist, because I cannot access it from a view.
Does exist some page which talks about this?
Since those are separate models that are not related to each other, you'll need to do a manual count.
$this->Model->find('count');
EDIT
Ok, so looks like you are talking about different models.
If this is used in a menu, that means it will be shown in all pages.
You have two ways of doing this.
You can do it by having an AppController for you application. Basically, you can put this code in the beforeRender method so it runs everytime your a request is rendered
function beforeRender() {
App::import('Model', array('Work', 'Photo', 'Stuff'));
$work = new Work();
$workCount = $work->find('count');
//do the same for the other
$this->set('workCount', $workCount);
}
Have a look at this for more details on callbacks : http://book.cakephp.org/view/977/Controller-Methods#Callbacks-984
Secondly, you can do this via a helper. You can put the same code (that is inside the bforeRender) into a helper, and you can call the helper method.
You can look here for more info on creating a helper : http://book.cakephp.org/view/1097/Creating-Helpers
The CounterCache behavior will help you out:
http://book.cakephp.org/view/1033/counterCache-Cache-your-count
Related
I am trying to extend the simple blog tutorial found in the documentation.
I have an index.ctp on /app/View/Users/index.ctp with all users being shown with a link on each username.... When i click on the username, I expect it to go to the view.ctp and show each user's blog posts and the number of posts each user has done.
I get an error here. Do I need to write a component for this? If so, how do I go about it?
class UsersController extends AppController {
public function view($id = null) {
$this->set('allposts',$this->Post->findByUserId($id));
}
}
So I get an error at this point because it cannot see the Post model in the user model. How do I go around this?
Thanks....
No, you don't need a component for that. If you have linked your models correctly (that's it, set belongsTos and hasMany(es) etc etc), then you have to access the post by concatenating.
$this->set('allposts',$this->User->Post->findByUserId($id));
Please see other questions regarding this.
Now, extending this a little bit since you seem a bit confused on what Components actually do. Components are a way to extending or adding functionalities to Controllers. If you want to, say, create a new Paginator, or call Facebook from your controller to get info, and there's no definite place to put that (users can have facebook info, but if you have another controller named "Friends", you might have to put some facebook functions there too).
Normally, if you think you need a component to have calls from one model to another, that's a sign you are organizing things wrongly (not a general rule, I'm open to examples on when this isn't true).
I have been trying to create a component like the Bakery's Paginator Recall that would allow me to save pagination data for CakePHP 2.4 and run into the following issue.
All solutions involve saving the Paginator parameters in the session and then retrieving and applying them upon returning to that same page without specifying any.
This approach would have worked if only the Paginator helper functions like numbers(), first() and previous() would include the page:1 named parameter in the links that they generate for moving to the first page like the corresponding function of the 1.3 version.
Unfortunately all of these functions create URLs without the page parameter when they refer to the first page, so when users click on the first page link, the component does not find any paging info and hence it returns them to the previous position.
There must be some way to work around this, but for the moment I am completely stuck.
NOT including the page number in the link to the first page is by design.
Read the reason on the CakePHP 2.4 Migration guide.
I would suggest to use the same convention. When you do not have pagination information assume is page one, and do not add it to your URLs.
So all you have to do is code this special case when then pagination is missing. And in this special case your "recall" component will simply not add that page.
I believe that I have managed to create a working solution. Thanks to the advice I have received I have now created a working component like the original PaginationRecallCompoent.
I have written all the details in the following blog post.
I am new to Cakephp and indeed OOP, so forgive me if i haven't fully grasped the MVC concept yet. I have search a lot but cannot find an answer - perhaps my way of working below is not correct. I hope you can help.
I am building a site which will have many elements relating to their tables and data. I intend to use a view to pick and choose the relevant elements and any parameters needed.
For example, the homepage of my site will have two elements - a latestusers element and a latestscores element. I am trying to use a view not related to either the users or scores models/controllers, stored in 'other/index.ctp'.
I have tried using set() to pass a variable from the users controller (latestusers action) into the other/index.ctp view, but the viewVars remain empty. Could this be due to scope of the variable (i think it is fine for a view in the users folder, i.e. a view specific to the users controller).
I could achieve what i want to do by using global variables, but i think this is missing the point of MVC/OOP. Would be grateful for any suggestions.
I can include code if need be - it is fairly basic at this stage - but i feel my problem lies with how i am going about things, not the code itself.
Cheers,
James
Yes, the issue is with the scope. If you're going to use variables in the element you'll need to pass them in from your view. So the flow would look something like this
Controller $this->set()s the variable into your current view/layout
Your view/layout calls $this->element with the current element path.
Your element uses those variables.
In number 2 you need to pass your variables as an array of data. This section on the cookbook gives more information : http://book.cakephp.org/view/1081/Elements
<?php echo$this->element('helpbox',
array("helptext" => "Oh, this text is very helpful."));?>
Note - I didn't understand part of the question. Just want to make sure you are passing data to the correct view. You should not be calling the view of another controller in your active controller.
Your other/index.ctp should be an element and that element should be called from your layout.
I have a multi-domain site. Depending on the domain the site needs to behave accordingly.
I created a helper called CompanyInfo it has methods such as name(), phone(), email(), etc.
Depending on what domain you are on it returns the correct information.
So for example if I need to display the phone number for a user to call I would use $this->CompanyInfo->phone() and it will display the correct phone number for the user depending on the domain.
Ok, this is all good, but not really relevant. The real issue is, I need this information in more than just the view. Helpers are just for views though. If I want to access this information from a controller I need to create a component to do it.
I really don't want to have a Helper and a Component doing the same thing. I would rather have one class handle it rather than copy and paste logic.
So whats the best way to have a class with methods that can be accessed from the controller or view or even model?
Is it just this kind of static information (name, phonenumber, email, etc) what you need to display? Why not just add them to your configuration in core.php?
Something like
# in core.php
Configuration::write('Company.name', 'Acme Corp.');
Configuration::write('Company.email', 'joe#acme.com');
You can then get this info anywhere you need using
Configuration::read('Company.name');
You can define this variable in your app_controller and then use these variable easily in any of your controller as set these variables from there only.
Call this function in your construct class.
i think that will solve your problem.
You can access model classes from any place this way :
$companyInfoModel = ClassRegistry::init('CompanyInfo');
$phone = $companyInfoModel->phone();
a) you can use libs in cake1.3 for that
b) static model methods which you can pass the content to and which will return the expected value
echo Model::phone($data)
Using cakePHP my goal is to combine the index view of two or more controllers in one layout page.
Example:
I have controllers for: news, events, links.
I want to show the last five entries from each table in one layout page.
Also, when one of the links from the views is selected it should take the user to the respective view for that record.
I have read through the books section on views but don't see how making a view into an element would accomplish this.
What confuses me is how to combine from three separate controller/views into one layout?
Thanks
Create methods in your News, Event and Link models for fetching the last 5 records. Then in your controller either include the models in the Controller::uses property, or in the action use ClassRegistry::init() to get access to the model, e.g.
function my_action() {
$news = ClassRegistry::init('News')->getRecent();
$events = ClassRegistry::init('Event')->getRecent();
$links = ClassRegistry::init('Link')->getRecent();
$this->set(compact('news', 'events', 'links'));
}
You can then call these model methods from any controller action, keeping your application DRY.
In your my_action.ctp view, and indeed many other views, just render the elements e.g.
// my_action.ctp
<?php
echo $this->element('recent_news');
echo $this->element('recent_events');
echo $this->element('recent_links');
?>
Your elements can then just iterate over the $news (or whatever) variable displaying the items with links to the 'view' actions in their respective controllers.
Just because a controller matches a model, doesn't mean you can't use other models in it.
First I would say that views and controllers are not necessarily tied together -- Cake will implicitly add the view specified by the file heirarchy / naming convention, but this doesn't necessarily have to be the case. So try to think of the views as decoupled from the controller (which is one of the main purposes for using the MVC architecture).
Assuming your three views (A,B,C) are exactly how you want them copied, put them into an element (which is just a view file located in the special APP/views/elements/ directory). Now you can use them in either layouts or other views, just by making a call to $this->element( 'elementName', array( 'options' ) ).
Basically, just abstract the code you want to display into elements, then insert those elements into the desired layouts.
You can set up your controller to use the RequestHandler and then make your view elements capable of fetching their own data from separate controllers in your application.
This link explains it better than I can
http://bakery.cakephp.org/articles/view/creating-reusable-elements-with-requestaction
One thing to keep in mind is that the controller actions you are calling should account for caching their own data so you don't do unnecessary database queries.