Handling Dynamic Content in CodeIgniter (Best Practice)

Question

I'm creating a website with CodeIgniter & have a question on best practice.

I generally break my webpages up into modular chunks. Header, Content, Footer (and some other stuff sprinkled in between as needed.

The 'Header' and 'Footer' chunks are usually static, while the guts in between can change depending on a few variables (the actual page for example - home, about, contact etc.)

Below is the controller for the page. header_view, navigation_view, and footer_view will (most likely) never change. The home_main_view will.

public function index()
{
    $this->load->view('header_view');
    $this->load->view('navigation_view');
    $this->load->view('home_main_view');
    $this->load->view('footer_view');

}

If a user navigates to the about page for example, the views may look something like this:

public function index()
{
    $this->load->view('header_view');
    $this->load->view('navigation_view');
    $this->load->view('about_view');
    $this->load->view('footer_view');

}

How would I handle that change in CI? Is it best to make home_main_view a variable and pass is into the index() function? I've done this before (user clicks a link that triggers a function in the controller that sets $var that calls index($var) that calls view($var).

score 2 · Answer 1 · answered Sep 18 '12 at 11:43

My favorite approach is to use a layout (it's just a view) that I use to load the other components in place. You obviously need one layout for each type of page you have, but using layout makes later changes easy.

I went one step further and created a method in my custom controller MY_Controller that I use to load the layout:

<?php
class MY_Controller extends CI_Controller{
    /**
     * Global $data variable holder
     * @var stdClass
     */
    protected $data;
    /**
     * The templates path, used by the 'render' method to determine the template to load
     * This is the 'root' of the templates folder for a specific section
     * Must NOT contain a trailing slash!
     * @var string
     */
    protected $templates_path = 'site';
    /**
     * The layout used by the 'render' method to load the specified view
     * @var string
     */
    protected $layout = 'default';
    /**
     * Class initialisation
     */
    function __construct() {
        parent::__construct();
        /*init the $data variable*/
        $this->data = new stdClass();
        /*the base url shortcut - to be used where needed*/
        $this->data->base_url = $this->config->item('base_url');
        /*page encoding header*/
        $this->output->set_header('Content-Type: text/html; charset=utf-8');
    }
    /**
     * Helper method that will load a view using the layout configured
     * @param type $view
     */
    protected function render($view = FALSE){
        $this->data->page_template = $this->templates_path.'/'.$view;
        $this->data->templates_path = $this->templates_path;
        $this->load->view($this->templates_path.'/layouts/'.$this->layout, $this->data);
    }
}

Then, in my layout, I load the view indicated in the $page_template variable in the proper place

<?php if ( ! defined('BASEPATH')) exit('No direct script access allowed'); ?>
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
    <head>
        <?$this->load->view($templates_path.'/sections/head')?>
    </head>
    <body class="<?=$page_class?>">
        <?$this->load->view($templates_path.'/sections/header')?>
        <?if(isset($hpslider) && $hpslider)
            $this->load->view($templates_path.'/sections/hp_slider')?>
        <div class="pcontent">
            <div class="page">
                <?=$this->load->view($page_template);?>
            </div>
        </div>
        <?$this->load->view($templates_path.'/sections/footer')?>
    </body>
</html>

Hope this helps you out.

Interesting. I'll have to pull this apart a bit, but it makes sense. Question though - isn't the point of CI to let your Controller do the 'work' and let your view just display what's passed to it? Is calling separate views from w/in the view going 'against' CI design? Or am I off the mark there? — Dan Bough, Sep 18 '12 at 14:37
As far as I am concerned, the controller does the 'logic' and the model does the 'heavy lifting' (not limited to database access only - but also uploading files, sending e-mails, complex calculations, etc). The view is there to display what the controller has determined to show based on the user request and the data that the model provided, and in my opinion, this is exactly what the piece of code I provided does. But everyone is welcome to provide a better solution :) — Silviu G, Sep 18 '12 at 14:52
Silviu - what you've described sounds a lot like Yii's View, Controller, Component relationship (Component seems synonymous w/your description of models here.) I'm still new to frameworks and MVC in general - still trying to figure out best practice. I'll take what you've provided and run with it. Thanks for the info and detail!! =) — Dan Bough, Sep 18 '12 at 16:17
Glad I could help out. TBH, the 'render' name is lifted shameless from the Yii framework :) but the actual code is not. I have been using layouts in CI long before I used Yii for several projects, but it was Yii that determined me to write this small method to make using layouts easier in CI. — Silviu G, Sep 19 '12 at 07:18

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Sep 18 '12 at 11:08

I don't use CI but u can use $_post , $_get or segments to let the action know what page you want to load.

Segment example: when u goto example.com/index.php/controller/index/home then it will load the "home" view.

public function index(){
$page=$this->uri->segment(3);
$this->load->view('header_view');
$this->load->view('navigation_view');
$this->load->view($page);
$this->load->view('footer_view');
}

http://codeigniter.com/user_guide/libraries/uri.html

score 0 · Answer 3 · edited May 23 '17 at 12:21

0

Please see my answer in the SO thread entitled Header and footer in CodeIgniter. This is how I handle all my views. It's a fairly modular approach - hope it helps!

Update after comments

As an example, a homepage might be loaded like this:

class Home extends CI_Controller{
    function index(){
        $d['v'] = 'home';

        //do database interaction here and 
        //ultimately assign results to some key in $d too.

        $this->load->view('init', $d);
    }
}

edited May 23 '17 at 12:21

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answered Sep 18 '12 at 15:31

Jordan Arsenault

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How would you handle the variable views? Pass them as a variable to the method? – Dan Bough Sep 18 '12 at 17:17
As mentioned in the other thread, I assign the view name to `$d['v'] = 'the_view';` and subsequently call `$this->load->view('init', $d);` in the controller. The view's name is converted into `$v` and is eventually loaded in **body.php** using ` $this->load->view($v); ?>` – Jordan Arsenault Sep 18 '12 at 17:28
That part I understand. How would you populate $d['v']? Pass a variable to a method containing $d['v'] in the same constructor. New constructor? Different method for each set of views in one constructor? Or chef's choice? ;). – Dan Bough Sep 18 '12 at 17:50
Sorry @DanB. - I'm not sure I understand your question. In my approach, you simply assign a string to `$d['v']` in your controller. I should mention that `$d['v']` is short as I could make it because I knew I'd be typing it often. The CodeIgniter docs usually populate a `$data` array and hand it to the view instead. Please see my updated answer. (I've also accidentally oscillated between `init` and `initiator` between posts. They are the same.) – Jordan Arsenault Sep 18 '12 at 19:48

Handling Dynamic Content in CodeIgniter (Best Practice)

3 Answers3

Update after comments