Re: [fw-mvc] Navigation, sidebar blocks, etc...

I'm using a front controller plugin to generate the sidebar in my application.

pastie.org/935924

The plugin simply renders a view into a "sidebar" placeholder, which ends up getting rendered in the layout:

pastie.org/935931

You can make that view script do whatever you want, like call a view helper to pull a random product.

The nice thing about this is I don't need to dispatch an action (which is relatively expensive) and I don't have to modify my existing actions to use the sidebar.

--
Hector

On Mon, Apr 26, 2010 at 3:22 AM, <ludwig.prepoint@gmail.com> wrote:

Hi,

 

I use a sidebar on my current app, displaying random ads, products and stuff. I use an action helper to choose what will be displayed on the sidebar, all 'global logic' is done in the helper and it render the result in a response segment called 'sidebar'.

 

Then, I just echo $this->layout()->sidebar in my layout.

 

That's not perfect, I need to call the helper in every action where I want to see something in the sidebar (but it could use a postdispatch hook for mandatory items in sidebar) and the result of the action helper is never used in the action method (it mismatch the purpose of action helpers).

 

If I have to do that again, I'll use a custom view helper similar to the placeholder but specialised, with a default output and methods to choose what will be displayed in the sidebar and how.

 

I would use it like that :

 

//in layout

 

echo $this->sidebar();

 

//in actions methods where the sidebar needs to output something else than default

 

$this->view->sidebar()->setContent(/* array of ordered criteria */);

$this->view->sidebar()->append(/* array of ordered criteria */);

$this->view->sidebar()->prepend(/* array of ordered criteria */);

From: Jachim Coudenys

Sent: Monday, April 26, 2010 10:13 AM

To: fw-mvc@lists.zend.com

Subject: [fw-mvc] Navigation, sidebar blocks, etc...

Hi,

 

I'm looking for the best way to include 'sidebar content' into my Zend Framework application.

 

I fixed the navigation problem, by setting it up in the bootstrap (ZFv1.10.2) and adding it to the Zend_Navigation registry.

But now I want to add random product blocks in the sidebar of pages, linking to the actual product page in the application.

 

I've used a custom Zend_Controller_Action class, where I've put 'global logic', and used the ActionStack to forward the request to a navigation action, but that doesn't feel right.

 

Is the postDispatch hook (helper) the correct place for this?

 

Regards,

 

Jachim Coudenys