Question

According to the tutorial, it is possible to handle all the requests for static pages through application/controllers/pages.php

class Pages extends CI_Controller {

    public function view($page = 'home')
    {
        if( ! file_exists('application/views/pages/'.$page.'.php'))
        {
            // Whoops, we don't have a page for that!
            show_404();
        }

        $data['title'] = ucfirst($page); // Capitalize the first letter

        $this->load->view('templates/header', $data);
        $this->load->view('templates/nav', $data);
        $this->load->view('pages/'.$page, $data);
        $this->load->view('templates/aside_right', $data);
        $this->load->view('templates/bottom', $data);
    }
}

This works for the “home”-page, but I don’t seem to be able to call views/pages/about for example.

I tried to make a seperate controller for the about-page. It works, but it feels somewhat wrong.

application/controllers/about.php

class About extends CI_Controller {

    public function index()
    {
        $this->load->view('templates/header');
        $this->load->view('templates/nav');
        $this->load->view('pages/about');
        $this->load->view('templates/aside_right');
        $this->load->view('templates/bottom');
    }
} 

I also have issues with my htaccess file or routes file. With the About-controller written above, I can only get to the page by typing domain.com/index.php/about. I’d like it to be domain.com/about etc.

This is what my routes.php’s like:

$route['about'] = 'about';
$route['(:any)'] = 'pages/view/$1';
$route['default_controller'] = 'pages/view';

My Htaccess:

RewriteEngine on
RewriteBase /
# Hide the application and system directories by redirecting the request to index.php
RewriteRule ^(application|system|\.svn) index.php/$1 [L]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ index.php/$1 [QSA,L]

Answer 1

As you already said, you don’t need to use another controller for the about pages. Your problem is with your routes.php.

$route['about'] = 'about';
$route['(:any)'] = 'pages/view/$1';
$route['default_controller'] = 'pages/view';

In this way, it will search for a controller named “about” and it doesn’t find the controller. If you erase the first line:

$route['(:any)'] = 'pages/view/$1';
$route['default_controller'] = 'pages/view';

It should work. In this case, as you request any page, for example about it will call pages/view/about, where pages is the controller, view is the function and about is the argument that is passed to the function (replacing the default $page = home).

I also spotted another error in your logic. You wrote

This works for the “home”-page, but I don’t seem to be able to call views/pages/about for example.

You don’t have to call view/pages/about. You’ve to call pages/view/about. Remember that the syntax is always the same Controller/Function/Variable1/Variable2/Variable3. So, you should be able to see the about page with http://yourdomain.com/index.php/pages/view/about or only with http://yourdomain.com/about if you have the $route['(:any)'] = pages/view/$1 rules in your routes.php.