I am using the Zend skeleton application.
I want to have a sub menu bar (via a template) injected underneath the default site wide menu bar, but I don't want to modify the site wide app settings, I'd like to just have it in the module.
Looking at examples it seems I would have to manually inject the menu bar template in each of my controller's actions and in every template where I want it to appear like this:
public function indexAction() {
$view = new ViewModel();
$subNavView = new ViewModel();
$subNavView->setTemplate('helpdesk/helpdesk/subNav');
$view->addChild($subNavView, 'subNav');
return $view;
}
public function someAction() {
$view = new ViewModel();
$subNavView = new ViewModel();
$subNavView->setTemplate('helpdesk/helpdesk/subNav');
$view->addChild($subNavView, 'subNav');
....do something add variables to $view....
return $view;
}
public function someOtherAction() {
$view = new ViewModel();
$subNavView = new ViewModel();
$subNavView->setTemplate('helpdesk/helpdesk/subNav');
$view->addChild($subNavView, 'subNav');
....do something add variables to $view....
return $view;
}
...etc
And the "echo $this->subNav" in every template.
Is this the right way to do this or is there a way to have my module automatically include this template for every page (without modifying anything outside of the individual module)?
I read the docs, but I'm still confused on how to achieve this or if this is even possible.
If you want to update the view model directly, you could also do that in onBootstratp of your Module class:
public function onBootstrap($e) {
$view = $e->getApplication()->getMvcEvent()->getViewModel();
$subNavView = new ViewModel();
$subNavView->setTemplate('helpdesk/helpdesk/subNav');
$view->addChild($subNavView, 'subNav');
}
And of course you already have something like this in your layout:
<?php echo $this->subNav; ?>
You could also consider using the standard partial view helper and setting the template path as a variable in your model from your Module.php like this:
public function onBootstrap($e) {
$viewModel = $e->getApplication()->getMvcEvent()->getViewModel();
$viewModel->subNav = 'application/navigation/subNav.phtml';
}
Then you modify your /module/Application/view/layout/layout.phtml something like this
<?php if ($this->subNav) {
echo $this->partial($this->subNav);
} ?>
The drawback to this idea is that then you have a view model variable which will show up in all your models. This can be annoying, for example, in json results.
Last idea, you might want to consider a navigation view helper. You could implement https://github.com/spiffyjr/spiffy-navigation if you don't want to build one from scratch.
If you solve it with a view helper, either custom or pre-existing package such as Spiffy Jr's, then you'd modify your layout so it uses the helper something like this, and all the logic is provided by the helper class:
<?php echo $this->navigationMenu(); ?>
All three ideas will unclutter your controllers and let your Module set up the subNav in a way that is relevant to it, such as which routes it is valid for, etc.
