Views & Templates¶

What is a View?¶

Views are responsible for generating and displaying the output of an application
Everything that the user sees is output from a view/view template

View Forms¶

Views can be displayed as different forms with different extensions
some of the most common types are:

HTML	XML
JSON	RSS

Anatomy of the view layer¶

Views - Templates that hold the presentation logic of an application
Elements - Small, reusable bits of code rendered inside views
Layouts - Template wrapper code. Most views are rendered inside of a layout
Helpers - Classes that encapsulate view logic that can be used in many areas of the application like date formatter or currency formatter

AppView¶

All application have a default AppView class which is located in src/View/AppView.php
AppView can be used to load helpers that can be used in all of an application’s views. Use “initialize()” for this

View Templates¶

By default, templates are in PHP and use a special file extension called ”.ctp”(CakePHP Template)
These files contain representational logic and are stored in “src/Template”
Templates should be named after the controller action that it corresponds to (eg. src/Template/Posts/view.ctp)

View Variables¶

Variables can be set in a controller and passed on to a view using “set()”

<?php
$this->set('name','John');

You can then use the “name” variable in the view

<?php
<p>My name is <?=name?></p>

Variable data can easily be escaped using “h()”

<?php
<p>My name is <?=h(name)?></p> // this is for security

Extending Views¶

Views can be wrapped in another by using view extending. This allows us to follow DRY(Don’t Repeat Yourself) principles

<?php
<h1><?=$this->fetch('title')?></h1>
<?=$this->fetch('content')?>

<div> class="actions">
    <h3>User Actions</h3>
    <?=$this->fetch('sidebar')?>
</div>
//title, content and sidebar are files in another folder

View Blocks¶

Using view blocks, we can define blocks in our views that will be defined somewhere else
This is ideal for things like sidebars, footers, etc

<?php
$this->start('sidebar');
echo $this->element('sidebar/recent_posts');
echo $this->element('sidebar/recent_comments');
$this->end();

Layouts¶

Layouts are templates that wrap another template and contain code that can be displayed on all pages/view
The default layout is at src/Templates/Layouts/default.ctp

<?php
<?=$this->fetch('content')?>
//displays the content from the current rendered view

set the title with

<?php
<?=$this->assign('title','Welcome');?>

Elements¶

Elements are small bits of view code that can be re-used from page to page
This would be things like ad boxes, navigation, sliders, etc
Can be considered a mini-view

<?php
echo $this->element('navbar');

Can add a second param to pass values

Custom View Classes¶

You can add custom classes for new types of data view
Classes go in “src/View”
Should be suffixed with View (eg. pdfView)
When referencing a view class, do not use “View”

<?php
$builder->viewClass('pdf');

Themes¶

Themes are plugins that focus on providing template files. They are used to switch the look of the page quickly and easily
Set the theme name in the beforeRender() callback in the controller

<?php
class PostController extends AppController{
    public function beforeRender(Event $event){
        $this->viewBuilder()->theme('Modern');
    }
}

JSON & XML Views (Data Views)¶

JsonView & XmlView allow us to create JSON & XML responses
You must enable RequestHandlerComponent

<?php
$this->loadComponent('RequestHandler');

You can generate these either by using the _serialize key of by just creating normal template files