Layout Component
Configurable Layouts for themes I am using Cake 2.0 (beta - havent upgraded properlly yet)
Using themes and redering different view files based on theme, I cam across a limitation which locks you into using the same layouts for view files in each theme. I had a need to change the layout in a new theme so did not want to load the same layout file in app/views/layouts which is dictated by the controller.
So I came up with a configurable approach to loading layouts which removes hardcoding in individual controllers
It involves installing a custom Layout component. This component uses Controller and Action mappings to advise which layout should be loaded and centralises the configuration of layouts in app/config/core.php
The Layout Component class is here
<?php
class LayoutComponent extends Object {
public function beforeRedirect(&$controller, $url, $status = null, $exit = true){}
public function beforeRender(&$controller){}
public function initialize(&$controller, $settings = array())
{
$this->controller = &$controller;
if (is_array(Configure::read('App.controller.layouts'))) {
$layoutMap = Configure::read('App.controller.layouts');
foreach ($layoutMap as $key => $value) {
if ($key == $this->controller->name) {
if (is_array($value['action'])) {
// many action mappings apply but maybe not all
if (in_array($$this->controller->action, $value['action'])) {
if (isset($value['layout'])) {
$this->controller->layout = $value['layout'];
}
}
} else if (isset($value['action']) && $value['action'] == '*') {
// All actions mappings apply
if (isset($value['layout'])) {
$this->controller->layout = $value['layout'];
}
}
}
}
}
}
public function shutdown(&$controller){}
public function startup(&$controller){}
}
To use it simply load it into your controller or AppController’s component array
eg:
public $components = array(
'Layout'
);
To configure layouts here is the setting to place in your core.php file
Configure::write('App.controller.layouts', array(
'Pages' => array('action' => '*', 'layout' => 'my_layout')
));
The above configuration says load a layout file called ‘my_layout’ if the controller requested is called ‘Pages’ and do this for any of ‘Pages’ actions
You can also single out actions in your configuration like so
Configure::write('App.controller.layouts', array(
'Pages' => array('action' => array('home'), 'layout' => 'my_layout')
));
The above configuration says load the ‘my_layout’ file only when the requested controller name is ‘Pages’ and the action of this controller is ‘home’. All other actions will use the default layout still.
You can list as many controllers as required in the configuration like so;
Configure::write('App.controller.layouts', array(
'Pages' => array('action' => '*', 'layout' => 'my_layout'),
'Searches' => array('action' => array('index'), 'layout' => 'search_layout')
));
This may be useful to you and keeps your controllers cleaner and more configurable.