Tips for Twits

Frontend – List
Let us revisit our frontend controller. Surely by now you’ve gotten a better grasp of the controller and models. So we’ll be revisiting those concepts here. So lets say you want to allow users to view you current Twits as well as create a new Twit.

1. Some new file structure loving

   app/
     design/
       frontend/
         default/
           default/
             template/
               twit/
                 - twits_list.phtml
     etc/
       modules/
         - SavantDegrees_All.xml (Or what ever your company name might be)
     code/
       local/
         SavantDegrees/ (Or what ever your company name might be)
           Twit/ (Or whatever your module name might be)
             Block/
               Admin/
                 - Main.php
                 Main/
                   - Grid.php
                 - Edit.php
                 Edit/
                   - Form.php
                 - New.php
                 New/
                   - Form.php
               - Index.php
             controllers/
               - AdminController.php
               - IndexController.php
             etc/
               - config.xml
             Helper/
               - Data.php
             Model/
               - Twit.php
               Mysql4/
                 - Twit.php
                 Twit/
                   - Collection.php
             sql/
               twit_setup/
                 - mysql4-install-0.2.0.php
                 - mysql4-upgrade-0.1.0-0.2.0.php

   We’ve added a whole nasty branch of subdirectories under app/designs. Read on to understand what its all for…

2. Let us return to our IndexController.php

   <?php
   class SavantDegrees_Twit_IndexController extends Mage_Core_Controller_Front_Action
   {
    
       public function indexAction()
       {
   	$this->loadLayout();
   	$this->getLayout()
   		->getBlock('content')->append(
   			$this->getLayout()->createBlock('twit/index')
       	);
           $this->renderLayout();
       }
   }

   Hold your horses, this code is EXACTLY the same as the Part 1. Its just a revision. However, that being said, we see that in Part 1, we made the system create a Block called index. That’s an opening…

3. So let us modify our index.php block:

   <?php
   class SavantDegrees_Twit_Block_Index extends Mage_Core_Block_Template
   {
       public function __construct()
       {
           parent::__construct();
           $this->setTemplate('twit/twits_list.phtml');
       }
    
       public function getTwits()
       {
       	$model = Mage::getModel('twit/twit');
       	$collection = $model
       	    	->getCollection()
       	    	->load();
    
           return $collection->getItems();
       }
   }

   What the difference here? We made the block load the template from twits/twit_list.phtml. We can create/find this file in /app/design/frontend/default/default/template/twits/twit_list.phtml. Some explanation is due here:

   • When you say setTemplate in the block, it means, use this file as the presentation/view
   • This file exists in the some subdirectory of /app/design/frontend/default/default/template. That is the path to your default template. Even though you may have other templates, this is the default 1. So when Magento cant find your template file in the other template directories, it always reverts back to this folder. Its a directory form of inheritance/ancestory/precedence.
4. Lastly, the twit_list.phtml file:

   <?php
   $_twits = $this->getTwits();
   if ($_twits) {
   	$count = 0;
   	foreach ($_twits as $i=>$twit) {
   ?>
   		<div class="twit">
   			<div class='name'><?= $twit->getName() ?></div>
   			<div class='summary'><?= $twit->getSummary() ?></div>
   		</div>
   <?php
   	}
   }
   ?>

   Since the whole purpose of twits_list.php is to prepare the view for the list of twits, it obviously needs to get the data from somewhere. It turns out, the Template is the extension of the Block. So by calling $this->getTwits(), we’re calling the Block's getTwits() method.

5. There you have it! check your twits list at http://127.0.0.1/magento/index.php/twit


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This entry was posted on Monday, June 22nd, 2009 at 3:47 am and is filed under development, howto. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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