[Solar-talk] Composite views

[Paul M Jones]

On Nov 2, 2007, at 6:19 PM, Rodrigo Moraes wrote:

> I've been using something to have some kind of components or gadgets
> "detached" from a controller/view. It is a mix of view and controller
> helpers, and the best to explain is to use an example. In a view, I
> call:
>
>     <?php echo $this->widget('News')->latestNews(); ?>
>
> * 'widget' is a view helper that just returns a "factory"  
> controller helper.
> * the controller helper builds the 'News' object, sets the view and
> page controller as a property of it, and returns it.
>
>     (at this point, the News object has access to public controller
> properties - plus controller helpers - and has a view object to work
> with)
>
> * 'latestNews' fetches some data from a model and returns the result
> using partials.
> * the view template paths are unset and set back to original before
> and after 'latestNews', so that 'News' can use its own template
> directories stored relatively to it.
>
> The prize: I can call the 'latestNews' box in any controller. It is
> independent and takes care of everything it needs (data, templates).
>
> Now, what do you guys think? Is this too much overhead? What other
> tricks could we use to have this "modularity"?

I would argue that invoking any sort of business logic from the view  
is probably not a good idea.  Instead, I'd say the controller should  
get the widget output and assign it to the view.  So in the controller:

     $widget = Solar::factory('Vendor_Widget_News');
     $this->latest_news = $widget->latestNews();

And then in the view:

     echo $this->latest_news;

Looking at it now, it appears like any other controller/view setup.   
In fact, if the widgets were just other page controllers, you might  
do this:

     $widget = Solar::factory('Vendor_App_News');
     $this->latest_news = $widget->fetch('latest');  // hits the  
actionLatest() method

Having said that, I think the overhead of another page-controller  
would be too heavy for our purposes here (don't really need another  
whole dispatch cycle with the hooks and layouts and everything).  So  
a separate widget series, where the methods do the business logic and  
then return the results of a widget view script without any layout,  
would seem like a decent approach.  (But call them from the  
controller, not the view.)

Hope I'm not missing the point, and that I made sense.  :-)



--

Paul M. Jones  <http://paul-m-jones.com>

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