Question

I’d like to set the layout’s $scripts_for_layout from within the controller.
Is this possible, and if yes how?

Answer 1

Short answer: maybe you’re doing it wrong.

Long answer: Scripts should not be controller dependent. It’s ‘theoretically’ wrong, and cake does not like people who doesn’t adhere to the mvc pattern.

Workaround (because sometimes you just need to): You can set in beforeRender a var:

function beforeRender() {
    parent::beforeRender();
    $this->set('scripts', array('script1', 'script2' ...));
}

And in the layout check for $scripts and add them.