Changing only the home page layout in cakephp

Question

If my whole site is using the default.ctp layout specified in apps/view/layouts/default.ctp, how do I change only the home page layout to use homepage.ctp and leave the rest of the site using default.ctp?

Answer 1

Copy the /cake/libs/controller/pages_controller.php into your /app/controller/ dir and do either of the following:

• Add a line towards the end of display() to switch the layout if 'home' is requested:
  if ($page == 'home') $this->layout = 'homepage';
• Create a home() method (or named however you like) in which you set $this->layout and re-route the / route in /app/config/routes.php to use this new method.

Edit:
In summary, you need some custom method in which you'll set $this->layout = 'homepage', that's all. You can do this in any of your controllers at any point, reusing the PagesController is just the most convenient and conventional way to do it in Cake.

Answer 2

The above answer is now out of date, but gives the right approach.

In modern versions of CakePHP, the controller he asks you to make is already present and is:

/app/Controller/PagesController.php

I had a template called "loggedoff", and added this as follows, just before the $this->render() command (approx line 73).

$this->layout = 'loggedoff';

Answer 3

This works fine:

class RegistrationsController extends AppController {
     public $helpers = array('Html', 'Form', 'Time');
     public $components = array('Session');

     public function login() {
         $this->layout = 'empty';
     } 
}

Just set the desired layout in the controller function.