default.ctp get information from controller cakephp

Question

I'm currently trying to use cakephp to create my own small CMS in php. So that it should be easy to modify the website. First of all im not a web programmer this is just for spare time.

I have a controller Button and a button can have multiple categories. so im trying to load this into the default.ctp so that this menu will be loaded for every page.

default.ctp code:

<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
<head>
    <title>
        <?php __('eg'); ?>
        <?php echo $title_for_layout; ?>
    </title>
    <?php
    echo $this->Html->css('cake.generic.style');
    echo $scripts_for_layout;
    ?>
</head>
<body>
    <div class="wrapper">
        <div class="header">
            <h1>Electro Geers Bvba</h1>
        </div>
        <div id="navMenu">
            <?php
            foreach ($buttons as $button) {
                echo '<ul>';
                echo '<li><a href="' . h($button['Button']['naam']) . '.html">' . h($button['Button']['naam']) . '</a>';
                if (!empty($button['Category'])) {
                    echo'<ul>';
                    foreach ($button['Category'] as $category) {
                        echo '<li><a href="' . $category['naam'] . '.html">' . $category['naam'] . '</a></li>';
                    }
                    echo'</ul>';
                }
                echo '</li>';
                echo '</ul>';
            }
            ?>
            <br class="clearFloat" />
        </div>
        <div class="contents">
            <h3>Sectionale poorten en Hekwerken</h3>
            <?php echo $content_for_layout; ?>

        </div>
        <div class="footer">
           Copyright © 2012 - 2017
        </div>
    </div>
</body>

I know that cakephp normaly probaly not should be used like this way but i want to know if it is possible? How can i load the button name into default.ctp?

I am currently getting this error:

Notice (8): Undefined variable: buttons [APP\View\Layouts\default.ctp, line 20]

Warning (2): Invalid argument supplied for foreach() [APP\View\Layouts\default.ctp, line 20]

Dave Dave · Accepted Answer · 2012-04-18T19:55:20

In your AppController:

$this->loadModel('Button');
$buttons = $this->Button->find('all');
$this->set(compact('buttons'));

This will cause every page to query the buttons table and pass the results to the view, which will then be accessible via your $buttons variable.

If you're going to be handling menus via the database, I highly suggest looking into caching in one form or another - probably not the best idea to force a database call like this on every page.

There area lot of options, but one that I've seen and like is to retain the menu in an XML file - then, anytime your buttons are updated/edited/added/deleted...etc, update the XML file.

default.ctp get information from controller cakephp

2 Answers