Solar Views and Layouts
Looks like the Zend Framework project doesn’t have “complex views” settled just yet. I’m sure they’ll hit on a solution soon. In the mean time, let me show you how easy it is to work with views and layouts in Solar, including automatic format discovery and inherited layouts.
Basic Directory Structure
By way of introduction, here is the directory structure for an example application. We’ll call the top-level namespace “Vendor”, and the application itself “Example”. (These would live in the PEAR directory next to the Solar installation.)
Vendor/
App/
Example.php
Example/
View/
hello.php
Layout/
default.php
Page Controller, View, and Layout
The example application is a simple “Hello World” page controller:
/* Vendor/App/Example.php */
class Vendor_App_Example extends Solar_Controller_Page {
protected $_layout = 'default';
public $foo;
public $zim;
public function actionHello()
{
// let's set some properties
$this->foo = 'bar';
$this->zim = 'gir';
// Solar_Controller_Page automatically finds and renders the
// 'hello.php' view, then takes that output and automatically
// injects it into the 'default.php' layout.
}
}
The view script in this case is dirt-simple, but you can use Solar_View helpers to jazz it up.
<!-- Vendor/App/Example/View/hello.php -->
<p>Hello, world!</p>
<p>Foo is <?php echo $this->escape($this->foo) ?>.</p>
As with most 2-step view implementations, the view output is “injected” into the layout script. In this case, let’s use a bare-bones HTML layout.
<!-- Vendor/App/Example/View/default.php -->
<html>
<head>
<title>Example</title>
</head>
<body>
<?php echo $this->layout_content ?>
</body>
</html>
(The $layout_content property is automatically populated by the page-controller with the output of the rendered view.)
When you browse to http://example.com/example/hello, you should see this output from the application:
<!-- Vendor/App/Example/Layout/default.php -->
<html>
<head>
<title>Example</title>
</head>
<body>
<!-- Vendor/App/Example/View/hello.php -->
<p>Hello, world!</p>
<p>Foo is bar.</p>
</body>
</html>
Variable Assignment
Wait, how did $foo get into the view? The page-controller automatically assigns all public properties of the controller to the view object, so you don’t have to think about what gets set and what doesn’t. If a controller property is public, the view can use it.
Likewise, the page-controller assigns the same variables to the layout, so you have full access to them in your layouts as well. For example, we could change the layout script to use $zim as the title …
<!-- Vendor/App/Example/View/default.php -->
<html>
<head>
<title><?php echo $this->escape($this->zim)</title>
</head>
<body>
<?php echo $this->layout_content ?>
</body>
</html>
… and the output would become:
<!-- Vendor/App/Example/View/default.php -->
<html>
<head>
<title>Gir</title>
</head>
<body>
<!-- Vendor/App/Example/View/hello.php -->
<p>Hello, world!</p>
<p>Foo is bar.</p>
</body>
</html>
Other Layouts, or No Layout
If you want to use a layout other than the default one, just change $this->_layout to the one you want to use. First, add the layout script:
Vendor/
App/
Example.php
Example/
View/
hello.php
Layout/
default.php
other.php
Then ask for it in your action:
/* Vendor/App/Example.php */
class Vendor_App_Example extends Solar_Controller_Page {
protected $_layout = 'default';
protected $_action_default = 'hello';
public $foo;
public $zim;
public function actionHello()
{
// let's set some properties
$this->foo = 'bar';
$this->zim = 'gir';
// let's use some other layout
$this->_layout = 'other';
}
}
If you don’t want to use a layout at all, set $this->_layout = null.
You can do the same thing for views; by default, the page controller looks for a view that matches the action name, but you can set $this->_view to the name of any view you like.
Multiple Formats
Now let’s say that we want to expose an XML version of our view. The Solar page-controller can look at the format-extension on a request and render the right view for you automatically. All you need to do it provide the view script for it – you do not have to change your controller logic at all.
Let’s add the XML view for our “hello” action (“hello.xml.php” below).
Vendor/
App/
Example.php
Example/
View/
hello.php
hello.xml.php
Layout/
default.php
other.php
The hello.xml.php view script looks like this:
<hello>
<foo><?php echo $this->escape($this->foo) ?></foo>
<zim><?php echo $this->escape($this->zim) ?></zim>
</hello>
Now when you browse to http://example.com/example/hello.xml (notice the added “.xml” at the end), you will get this output:
<hello>
<foo>bar</foo>
<zim>gir</zim>
</hello>
You can do this for any output format you like: .atom, .rss, and so on – and not have to change your controller logic at all.
Wait a minute, what happened to the layout? The Solar page-controller knows that if it receives a non-default format request, it should turn off the layout and use only the view.
Shared Layouts
Now, what if you have a layout or view that you want to share among multiple page controllers? This is pretty easy, too. First, define a “base” controller from which other controllers will extend, then put the shared layouts there.
Vendor/
App/
Base.php
Base/
Layout/
default.php
other.php
The base controller might look like this:
/* Vendor/App/Base.php */
class Vendor_App_Base extends Solar_Controller_Page {
// nothing really needed here, unless you want
// shared methods and properties too
}
Now the “example” controller extends the base controller:
/* Vendor/App/Example.php */
class Vendor_App_Example extends Vendor_App_Base {
// ...
}
And you can remove the layouts from the example controller; it will automatically look up through the class-inheritance hierarchy to find the requested layout.
Vendor/
App/
Base.php
Base/
Layout/
default.php
other.php
Example.php
Example/
View/
hello.php
You can override the shared layouts with local ones if you want to. If you have Example/Layout/default.php the page-controller will use it instead of the shared one.
This works with views too. Put any views you want to share in Base/View, and the page-controller will find them if they don’t exist in the Example/View directory.
That’s All For Now
Questions? Comments? Leave a message below, or join the Solar mailing list and chime in there – we’d be happy to have you around.