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 $content_for_layout in default.ctp. (Of course you can also have different layouts.) In addition, the layout can be enhanced with elements.
I really recomend the CakePHP CookBook, easily found from the CakePHP homepage. Modifying default.ctp should edit your applications layout.
A more specific question (eg. code samples of your default.ctp, expected results etc) might help people provide a better answer than mine.
Related
First time poster here, I'm a designer not skilled at all with php and I have a small issue I don't seem to be able to solve. I'm making a site in drupal 7 using a sub theme on zen.
Btw this is a great CMS, even though people say it's really more a developers CMS. I have no trouble to do what I need using views, rules, display suite etc. So a big thank you for all the developers out there making this such a good CMS. But for this apparently simple problem... no module will help me (I think) and I'm kinda stuck.
So here it is: I'd like to add a subtitle next to the title in all my pages.
So what I did was to add a custom field into the content type basic page (machine name: field_sub_title) which is a simple text field.
I uncommented the following line in my template.php
function mytheme_preprocess_page(&$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.
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
I have a controller method that has long been handling JSON requests by parsing that extension, but now I need to open it up to cross domain ajax so I'd like to offer a JSONP variant by parsing that extension as well. I've already updated my routes.php file:
Router::parseExtensions( 'json', 'jsonp' );
So far all is well, but the happiness ends when the results are rendered. While the .json extension automagically picks up the json/default.ctp layout, the .jsonp content continues to adopt the non-specific default layout (and all of its unnecessary HTML content). I've tried using RequestHandler::setContent() to set the response content type to both json and js, but that doesn't seem to be what triggers the call to a given layout directory.
Does anyone know what does determine which content-specific layout directory is called? I tried creating jsonp/default.ctp and I've tried creating a js/default.ctp layout with my JSONP result, but nothing seems to engage. I just get the normal default.
Any insight into how extensions/content type are mapped to these layout directories would be much appreciated.
I've temporarily solved this by explicitly setting the layoutPath value:
$this->layoutPath = $params['url']['ext'];
This feels like one of those things where there must be a better solution, but maybe this is it. I'm going to leave the question open for a bit in the hopes that someone else has a solution that involves Cake's automagic.
I have a fresh CakePHP 1.3 install and it currently has one layout. I am about to add a few more but I don't want to have to keep coping and pasting the Header and footer in to each layout.
At first I thought that I could do this with an Elements, but it does not seem to render the Configure::read('var_name'); chunks while in an element.
My other thought was to create a common layout and use lots of variables to add and remove sections from the screen depending on what type of user they are... but this would be troublesome to say the lest.
My question is:
Is a way to include a header/footer section in to a layout while getting the Configure::read() function to output text?
I still think that elements are the right way to go for this (shared view snippets, FTW). I have to admit that I'm a little surprised that elements can't read from the Configure class, but I'll concede that I haven't tried it. If that really won't work, then try passing the values directly to the element:
<?php echo $this->element( 'partial_name', array( 'var_name', Configure::read( 'var_name' ); ?>
In the element, you should then be able to access the variable simply as $var_name. For more on passing variables to elements, take a look at the [Passing Variables into an Element](Passing Variables into an Element) section of the element documentation.
Hope that helps.
Create element with new header suppose new_header.ctp. Then put element('new_header')?> in your preferred position layout
What is the best way to create regions in your layout similar to Wordpress's Widgets or Drupal Blocks? What is the best practice method of doing that in CakePHP?
If by regions you mean a special "content container" (never used WP/Drupal), then it's very easy.
There are several ways to accomplish this, but the one that came to my mind first was this:
Create a helper (or an entire plugin) to handle the "which content goes into which container" logic. Shouldn't be too hard to do because you have many Cake utility classes to help you out with that (such as the Configure class). This should obviously be configurable by the end user.
Create containers in your layout, example:
<div class="content-container" id="content-container-left">
<?php echo $yourHelper->outputContent("left"); ?>
</div>
Two options:
Content should be based on elements; or
Content should be based on custom plugins (which actually do their stuff and output the content)
Note: There are probably better ways to accomplish what you want, this is just the first that came to my mind. I'd recommend some pencil-and-paper planning before you actually code anything, it will improve your chances of finding the best way for your app.
I created a Sidebar Helper recently that you might find useful.
You define the content of the boxes in Cake elements, and then add them by calling ...
$sidebar->addBox(array('element'=>'my_sidebox_element');
... this would render the content of views/elements/my_sidebox_element
Alternatively you can specify te content of a box 'inline':
$sidebar->startBox(array('title' => 'My Inline Box'));
<p>blah <b>blah</b> <span>blah</span></p>
$sidebar->endBox();
The in your layout file call
echo $sidebar->getSidebar();
... and each of your boxes will be rendered as divs
Technically speaking this doesn't need to be used as a 'SideBar' - it ultimately depends on how you render the layout with CSS.
See the documented code for more details:
SidebarHelper on GitHub