I'd like to have the layout reflect some data from a model. However, the render method from the CController class passes the structured data only to the view file, while the layout file only gets the rendered view passed.
So, how to best have the layout display data from a model?
Two possibilities come to mind:
Make Yii's layout file a no-op, mimicking layout logic manually from the view.
Override CController's render method in its subclass.
I'm not so happy with either variant, so maybe someone has a cleaner idea on how to do it?
Another way is to define a public variable in your controller class, something like:
class MyController extends Controller {
public $test = 'foo';
....
That value can then be accessed within a layout:
echo $this->test;
And manipulated in an action:
public function actionMyaction(){
$this->test = "bar";
...
Obviously it's not ideal if you have many variables that you need to use in a layout. One solution is to use an array of parameters. Alternatively you could look at making your layout more minimal and using CWidget to create reusable components for use inside your views.
For example, you obviously wouldn't want to have the code for your main navigation duplicated inside every view, so the obvious solution is to have in the layout, but if it becomes inconvenient to handle the data you could have an instance of a widget that renders out the navigation inside each view (and you can pass data to the CWidget class) something like:
$this->widget("MainNavigation",array("params"=>$params));
Related
A little confused on how to implement this into my main view controller. The example project shows it as a navigation controller, but I wasn't able to add an existing class on a fresh navigation controller or my current UIViewController. I could just be implementing it wrong though. Much appreciation if I can gain some traction on how to work with these.
If you could share some code that would be great.
How things work:
Navigation Controllers
There are currently 4 different Navigation Controllers that each offer their own features. The controllers can be used individually, or together.
SideNavigationViewController
The SideNavigationViewController offers 3 bodies to display content: mainViewController, leftViewController, and rightViewController.
MainViewController
The mainViewController must always exist, and has a facility for transitioning between view controllers using the transitionFromMainViewController method. Using this method is as easy as passing a UIViewController in its first parameter.
sideNavigationViewController?.transitionFromMainViewController(InboxViewController())
There are further parameters that allow for animations, completions, etc... to be set when transitioning between view controllers.
LeftViewController and RightViewController
The leftViewController and rightViewController can be set only once. To make them dynamic, you would need to use another Navigation Controller as its view controller.
NavigationBarViewController
The NavigationBarViewController offers a NavigationBarView along side the ability to manage two UIViewControllers, the mainViewController and the floatingViewController.
MainViewController
The mainViewController is like the SideNavigationViewController's mainViewController, and has a transitionFromMainViewController method that transitions from view controller to view controller in the body portion of the NavigationBarViewController.
FloatingViewController
The floatingViewController is a modalViewController and when set, it pops over MainViewController and NavigationBarView. Setting that value is like so:
navigationBarViewController?.floatingViewController = InboxViewController()
To close and hide the floatingViewController set it to nil, like so.
navigationBarViewController?.floatingViewController = nil
SearchBarViewController
The SearchBarViewController offers a single transitioning mainViewController, as well, has a SearchBarView at the top. Transitioning the mainViewController is like so:
sideNavigationBarViewController?.transitionFromMainViewController(InboxViewController())
MenuViewController
The MenuViewController is another controller that has a mainViewController, which takes the entire screen. Floating above it, is a MenuView that is used to transition between mainViewControllers.
menuViewController?.transitionFromMainViewController(InboxViewController())
Final Notes
These Navigation Controllers can be used in any combination and any amount of times creating a robust and intricate stack of controllers that act like one.
I hope this helps :)
I am trying to pass a simple core data objects info from a tabBarController to its subviews so that they each reference a different attribute of that object. As a newbie, I'm not sure even where to start. It doesn't seem to be as simple as passing the data from one tableView to another...
Thank you for any help.
If you are sharing the same object between (most of the) the view controllers of your tab bar controller, maybe the best architecture for this would be to have one central data object.
A typical pattern is a singleton, some kind of data manager that provides the object, but maybe that is overkill. Another is to keep references to all view controllers and update them one by one when something changes - also not very elegant.
What you really want is something like a global variable. You could (ab)use your app delegate (just give it a property that points to the object) or if you prefer even your tab bar controller (make a subclass, give it a property). In the latter case, every view controller could then get the object like this:
NSManagedObject *object = [(MyCustomTabBarController*)self.tabBarController object];
For example, you can check for changes and refresh your views in viewWillAppear.
A UITabBarController should be handling other view controllers, not handling data objects. How does the tab bar controller get the object reference in the first place? And what is the object you're sharing?
Let each of your subordinate VC's keep a pointer to the object, and then they can each follow the appropriate keypath to get to the entities they're designed to handle.
Tim Roadley's book Learning Core Data for iOS, in chapters 5 and 6, shows how to pass an object from one view controller (a table view) to a detail view. It doesn't sound like that's what you're asking, but just in case...
In response to comment:
I'm looking at a tableview, tap a cell, and then a tab bar controller slides in? That's not the usual visual metaphor for a tab bar; it's meant for changing modes for the entire program. See the Music app for a typical example: songs, playlists, artists.
But if you really need to do it that way, try this (I'm assuming you're using storyboards):
In prepareForSegue: in your tableview controller, tell the destination (tab bar controller) what object it's working with.
In the tab bar controller's -viewWillAppear, tell each of its tabs about the attribute: self.frobisherViewController.frobisher = self.myWidget.frobisher.
You could instead tell each of the component tabs about the top level object: self.frobisherViewController.widget = self.myWidget. But I like the first approach better because there is less linkage. The frobisherViewController now would need to know about both widgets and frobishers.
This ended up being very simple. I was trying to call the object in the child views initWithNibName which doesn't work. I ended up creating a setObject function and calling the properties I wanted in viewWillAppear.
Hope this helps someone.
I'm having a strange issue with Yii and a theme. I set it in config/main.php like:
'theme'=>'themeName',
as usual. But when I try to render a view, it is rendered as is, without any layout, as if I called:
$this->renderPartial
I double check that I don't call for renderPartial, the themes seem to be equal to all the others theme I've done. What can be this issue about?
Thank's for any help, I'm going out of mind on this...
Here is the structure and syntax that you should have to check
-yiiroot
-!-!protected
-!-!-!controllers
-!-!-!-!TestController.php
-!-!themes
-!-!-!themeName (it was the one that you have set on config file)
-!-!-!-!views
-!-!-!-!-!layouts
-!-!-!-!-!-!main.php // It would be default what if public $layout has not been overwriten or the layout file which has been set was not found
-!-!-!-!-!test
-!-!-!-!-!-!viewName.php
On controller TestController
public $layout is main as default or is overwritten there
in actionIndex you set $this->render('viewName');
If you rendered your page by method renderPartial() directly in controller, you would not get the layout template for sure
render() is commonly used to render a view that corresponds to what a
user sees as a "page" in your application. It first renders the view
you have specified and then renders the layout for the current
controller action (if applicable), placing the result of the first
render into the layout. It then performs output processing (which at
this time means automatically inserting any necessary tags
and updating dynamic content) and finally outputs the result.
renderPartial() is commonly used to render a "piece" of a page. The
main difference from render() is that this method does not place the
results of the render in a layout. By default it also does not perform
output processing, but you can override this behavior using the
$processOutput parameter.
renderFile() is a low-level method that does the grunt work of
rendering: it extracts the data variables in the current scope and
then runs the view code. The other two methods internally call this
one, but you should practically never need to call it yourself. If you
do, keep in mind that you need to pass in a file path (not a view
path).
Reference: Yii difference between rendering functions
If I declare something like
#FXML
private final static double PREF_SPACING = 10d;
or
#FXML
private Insets insets = new Insets(10d);
in the controller class,
is there a way to use their values in Scene Builder?
When I want to change the value, I want to change
it only once, in the controller class.
PRELIMINARY ANSWER
I haven't yet tried all of the techniques below, but it seems to be the way you would do it from reading the documentation. If I get some time, I'll try it out later and update this answer with results (or somebody else can do this and post a new answer or edit this one to create a definitive answer). I just wanted to publish something now to point you in what I believe to be the right direction.
If the below is not what you are looking for, add a few more specifics to your questions to fully describe what you want.
Don't using the #FXML annotation here. #FXML is for injecting values from the markup into the controller, not the other way around.
For your first example which is a constant, let's say your controller class is:
class MyControllerType {
public final static double PREF_SPACING = 10d;
}
Then in your fxml, reference the constant:
<?import MyControllerType?>
...
<VBox>
<spacing><MyControllerType fx:constant="PREF_SPACING"/></spacing>
</VBox>
For your second sample which is not a constant or a part of the SceneGraph, you can use an fx:define element to instantiate an instance of the class. Note that you can't directly instantiate an Insets class from FXML as it has no builder class nor zero length constructor. So what you might be able to do is create another placeholder class for the information and instantiate a reference to that in your FXML (or you can create a Builder that FXML can use to instantiate the Insets).
class InsetsHolder {
private Insets insets = new Insets(10d);
public Insets getInsets();
}
<?import InsetsHolder?>
<fx:define>
<InsetsHolder fx:id="i"/>
</fx:define>
<VBox>
<Button text="Click Me!" VBox.margin="$i.insets"/>
</VBox>
SceneBuilder should be able to read fxml files which use the fx:define and fx:constant notation, as well as (possibly) make use of the reference expression $i.insets. SceneBuilder might not have any UI to allow you to edit the values from within the SceneBuilder application, so you will probably need to hand edit the fxml file portions related to the fx:define and fx:constant elements if you wish to make use of these structures.
There is an executable example of using an fx:define element in this mailing list post on designing resolution independent units in FXML.
In general, I think I'd be a bit cautious of maintaining these kind of dependencies between fxml and java code. It may be more prudent to do more of this kind of stuff in plain Java code within the context of the controller initialize method as scottb suggests.
The #FXML annotation enables the JavaFX objects whose names you defined (fx:id) to have their references reflectively injected into nonpublic fields in the controller object as the scene graph is loaded from the fxml markup.
To the best of my knowledge, this is a one way operation. There is no provision for having named static class variables in the controller object injected into the scene graph during loading.
You can accomplish something very similar to what you are requesting by defining the values that you want set as class variables in your controller object's class, and then setting the appropriate object properties programmatically (rather than in markup) in the initialize() method of your controller object.
The initialize() method is called (if it is present) after the loading of the scene graph is complete (so all the GUI objects will have been instantiated) but before control has returned to your application's invoking code.
I have a form I need to show on every page. I'd like to put it in the layout rather than defining it in multiple controllers and view templates. I'm not sure how to do this without creating a slot for it, but then I have to define the slot in every template, and I'm back at square one.
My other thought would be to create a custom action class that defines the form and then subclass all my other actions from it, but that seems like overkill.
You could just use a component, easier than a slot, and stick that in your template, only needs to be defined in one place:
<?php include_component('someModule', 'someAction') ?>
I use components and partials in my layouts quite a bit, works well.