R – Widgets inside Zend Framework – Where should they go

widgetWordpresszend-framework

I've been working with Zend Framework (using Doctrine as the ORM) for quite a while now, and done a few projects with it.

In a few upcoming projects I am requiring the need for widgets similar to how WordPress does them. You have a post/page, which could look like:

Subscribe to my newsletter:
[subscribe/]

View my events
[events limit=5 sort=date/]

View this page's comments
[comments/]

Where say the subscribe widget would be replaced with Blog::subscribeWidget, and the events could be replaced with Events::eventsWidget, etc.

Now it has done my head in the past few weeks about how on earth do I do this??? I've come up with the following options:

I could place the widgets within controllers, and then call them like actions. Problem here is that code could be flying between controllers, and I have read this is expensive due to the amount of dispatches.
I could place the widgets as view helpers. So within the view I could have $this->renderPage($Page), which would then attend to all the widgets. Problem here is that what if the widgets need to do some business logic, like for example posting a new comment, that really shouldn't be within the view, should it?
The other option is to place widgets within the model? But then how on earth do they then render content for display?

Extra complications come when:

Say the comments widget would also handle posting, deleting of comments etc.
Say for the events listing, if I want to do an ajax request to the next page of events, using method #2 (view helpers) how would this work?

Best Answer

If I understand you correctly your widgets will need their own action controllers, which is where their logic for fetching data to be displayed, parsing form submissions, etc. should go. The difference between a widget and a page in this case is in how it's rendered, i.e. as an HTML fragment instead of as a whole page; you can use the Action View Helper to achieve this.

If your widget includes a form it should probably use AJAX to submit the form data back to the server, so that using the widget doesn't cause the user to accidentally navigate away from the page. You can inject the required JavaScript into the page you've included the widget into by using the Head Script Helper in your widget's view and/or action.

Related Solutions

Php – Creating a more flexible view in Zend Framework

Sounds like you need a ViewHelper http://framework.zend.com/manual/en/zend.view.helpers.html. Create a custom helper that will fetch the data from a model and just simply output it. This way it won't depend on any controller, can be called in either the layout or in any view script. Example:

// views/helpers/Widget.php
class Zend_View_Helper_Widget extends Zend_View_Helper_Abstract
{
protected $_model = null;

protected $_view = null;

public function widget()
{
    $data = $this->_getDataFromModel();

    return $this->_view->partial('widget.phtml', array('data' => $data));
}

public function setView(Zend_View_Interface $view)
{
    if($this->_view === null) {
        $this->_view = $view;
    }

    return $this->_view;
}

protected function _getDataFromModel()
{
     $this->_model = $this->_getModel();
     return $this->_model->getDataForWidget();
}

protected function _getModel()
{
     if($this->_model === null) {
         $this->_model = new Model_Widget(); // or whatever it's called
     }
     return $this->_model;
}

The partial script:

// views/scripts/widget.phtml
<div class="widget-class"><?php echo $this->data; ?></div>

And when you need it in your views just call it like <?php echo $this->widget(); ?>

Note that I'm rendering the widget in a separate partial view script, just to avoid having html/css in the helper itself.

Hope this helps to get you started :)

Php – Zend Framework – using jquery dialog for popup form in a Zend controller/action

Well, I am not sure if i understand your question but you can try this

You can load your form in UI dialog box, to disable layout do this on you can do this

public function addwidgetAction(){
       $this->_helper->layout()->disableLayout();
       //just diable layout and do eveything normal        
}

on your preferences.phtml file load the content of url baseurl/contrller/addwidget to jquery modal dialog

UPDATE

One way is use a jqueryplugin fancybox (external src) check the forgot password link
The other way is to use ajax

UPDATE

Well now i read your question well, though don't understand so clearly, i understand that you are trying to do something that is quite ambitious. And you cannot achieve through normal load method. You need to use ajax

I have to admit that I don't like jquery ui modal dialog so i don't know much about it, and i usually use jquery fancy box where it would give me an ability to load external page. Maybe you can do this through jquery ui modal dialog box.

I guess the problem that you are facing right now is you open a dialog box, you get the form in dialog, and you submit the form, it sends the normal post request, so dialog is reloaded, that's what happens in the link i have above, just click on forgot password link

Well there's solution for that too, the solution is ajax, and i hope you are quite familiar with it. you send ajax request and get response back, and depending on your response, you can exit dialog box as well update the the parent (preferences controller page) but that is quite ..... I tried to so same with few months back, but not with zf, i don't know how much i accomplished but it sure gave me a nasty headache

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Php – Creating a more flexible view in Zend Framework

Php – Zend Framework – using jquery dialog for popup form in a Zend controller/action

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