Re: Newbie question for "best practice" on how to combine CakePHP with a (given) design

Looks like a combination of layouts and elements. Don't forget you can create as many layouts as you want, and specify which one to use in your controller - either inside beforeFilter (so that it applies to all functions in the controller) or inside a controller function (which will override all other settings). The command is $this->layout = '*layout_name*';  '*layout_name*' can also be  variable, allowing you precise control.

You can customise your view at runtime by calling an element with a variable - echo $this->element($variable); You can also customise your elements at runtime by passing in variables - echo $this->element('*element_name*', array('variable' => 'value')); - and have your code react internally to the variable dynamically.

Here's a few ideas on dynamic menus: http://articles.classoutfit.com/2009/11/cakephp-dynamic-navigation-bars/

I'm sure there's lot of other ideas too.

Jeremy Burns
jeremyburns@me.com

On 29 Mar 2010, at 13:49, janitor048 wrote:

Hi there,

I'm pretty new to CakePHP (and MVC in general for that matter) and I'm
just working through the docs etc.
And since the cookbook is quite informative, I think I've got a pretty
good idea of what CakePHP could do for me by now.

However, I would like to ask a question on best or common practice on
how to actually integrate my pieces of cake with a given design.
So that I can keep these suggestions in mind when digging even deeper
into the documentation.

Say, I've got a webpage that features
- a main "view" area in the center
- a main menu at the top that stays constant over all pages
- a side menu to the left that stays constant over some pages but does
in general depend on the content of the central area
- a small side area to the right with some login / admin bits-and-
pieces.

Pretty common and probably pretty close to the actual project I'm
about to work on.
The general layout as described above I would like to design using
dreamweaver (for instance) and setting up a css formatted page using
divs.

The main toolbar would probably best go into a common cake layout
file. But what about the rest? View files with elements for left menu
and login-area on the right? Login stuff as an element and the left
menu in layout files that are selected by the controller accordingly?

Can I attach id-based css rules to a specific element created by a
(say) form helper? For positioning purposes and the like..

And finally: What is the best way to incorporate bits and pieces from
different models / controllers into a single view? That would
something like a summary page, e.g. showing the 5 latests news, the 3
latest pictures and the most popular comments (or whatever you like)
in different areas of a single page (as delivered to the user).


Any hints and suggestions would be highly appreciated.
Cheers,
Oliver

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