How to include separate Controller,Model,View with CakePHP

Question

New to Cakephp and im struggling a little bit, wonder if you could help...

so ive followed CakePHP blog tutorial and completed it. after making the blog, the controller is called PostsController.php the model is Post.php and the view is in Posts/index.ctp.

I will provide code(not the full as only the relevent needed to explain)

Controller/PostsController.php is as follows:

<?php
class PostsController extends AppController {
    public $helpers = array('Html', 'Form');

    public function index() {
         $this->set('posts', $this->Post->find('all'));
         $this->set('title_for_layout', 'forums');
    }




   public function add() {
        if ($this->request->is('post')) {
            $this->Post->create();
            if ($this->Post->save($this->request->data)) {
                $this->Session->setFlash(__('Your post has been saved.'));
                return $this->redirect(array('action' => 'index'));
            }
            $this->Session->setFlash(__('Unable to add your post.'));
        }
    }







}
?>

View/Posts/index.ctp is as follows:

<?php echo "<h1>" . $this->Html->link('Add Post', array('action' => 'add')); ?>

<table style="float: left; margin-left: 100px; display: none; " id="hidethis">

<!-- Here's where we loop through our $posts array, printing out post info -->

    <?php foreach ($posts as $post): ?>
    <tr>
        <td width="22%" style=" font-size: .75em; text-align: left;">
            <?php echo $post['Post']['created']; ?>


        </td>
        <td width="78%">
             <?php
                echo 
                    $post['Post']['title']  
                ;
             ?>
         </td>


    </tr>

    <?php endforeach; ?>

</table>

Model/Post.php is as follows:

<?php
class Post extends AppModel {
     public $validate = array(
        'title' => array(
            'rule' => 'notEmpty'
        ),
        'body' => array(
            'rule' => 'notEmpty'
        )
    );
}
?>

so this works fine,however i want to have a website with 3 main pages; Home, About us, Contact Us.

now on the about us page i will have content and a section i want to be the posts that i created as seen in the examples above. However to do this i want to be able to have: Controller/AboutsController.php, Model/About.php view/Abouts/about.ctp and kind of require/include the whole Posts MVC.

and if i was to just make my about us page the Posts MVC then the names wouldnt be really what i wont them to, meaning the pages would be called posts instead of about, due to cakephp naming conventions.

I hope this makes sense, can any one help please?

Answer 1 · 2014-08-13T13:38:31Z

August 13, 2014 1:38pm

Hey!

I haven't used Cake specifically but maybe I can offer some advice regarding MVC.

It sounds like you have a really great Posts setup already, and you want your posts to appear in multiple places across the site. Don't change a single thing here - you're all set up.

If it as me, I would create only an About Controller and an About View. You will need a method in the About Controller for index/show. In this method you will need to grab the posts you want to display from the Posts Model (maybe all or most recent etc). You'll then need to render a view and also send in the posts to the view. Again - not too sure about Cake - but models don't have to be specific to their controllers. You can call models (which is, at it's most basic, a row in your database with logic) from any controller as well as relationships (one to many, belongs to).

If Cake has routes, you'll need to route any requests for '/about' to the about#index method in the about controller.

Inside the about view, you'll need to grab and foreach around whatever variable you send from the About Controller and there you have it!

If you're displaying all posts via the posts/index, you could change that to the about page. All you would need to do is route '/about' to the posts#index method and render a view which has the about-page-information along with code that will display your posts. This seems a little conflicted, which is why it may be simpler work flow to create an About Controller.

Hope this helps!

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How to include separate Controller,Model,View with CakePHP

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