Question

I’m building a menu options, having issue in last option, The Anchor method doesn’t work as a link popup a new window. Besides, in option 1 and 2, I repeat those codes which is not look great.

Is there a better way to optimize those codes? make it cleaner.

In my controller:

public function loadPage($name, $pageID) {
    $data['title'] = $this->tabPageData;
    $data['tabMenu'] = $this->model->getAllMenuItems(); 

    if ($name == 'portfolio-1') {
        // load portfolio 1, get the page content (photos) and its name
        $data['tabPageContent'] = $this->model->getPageContentByPageID($pageID);
        $data['pageName'] = $this->model->getPageNameByID($pageID);
    } elseif ($name == 'portfolio-2') {
        $data['tabPageContent'] = $this->model->getPageContentByPageID($pageID);
        $data['pageName'] = $this->model->getPageNameByID($pageID);
    } elseif ($name == 'contact') {
        // load Contact page
        $data['tabContact'] = $this->model->getContactByPageID($pageID);
    } else {
        // load a Blog site
        echo anchor('http://mysite.tumblr.com', 'target=_blank');
    } 
    $this->load->view('content', $data);
}

In my View:

<div id="menu">
         <ul>
            <?php foreach ($tabMenu as $item) : ?>
                <?php
                    $url = "<li><a href='" . base_url(); 
                    $url .= str_replace("+", "-", urlencode(strtolower($item->name))) . "/". ($item->cat_id) . "'>";
                    $url .= strtoupper($item->name) . "</a></li>";
                    echo $url;
                ?>
            <?php endforeach; ?>    
        </ul>
    </div> <!-- end of Menu -->

Answer 1

I would suggest that you clean up your view by creating a helper method that generates a list item for your navigation.

Put the following code in a file named navigation_helper.php in application/helpers/.

if (!defined('BASEPATH')) exit('No direct script access allowed');

if (!function_exists('build_list_item'))
{
    function build_list_item ($item) {
        $url_item_name = str_replace('+', '-', urlencode(strtolower($item->name)));
        $url = base_url() . $url_item_name . "/". $item->cat_id;
        return '<li><a href="' . $url . '">' . strtoupper($item->name) . '</a></li>';
    }
}

Make sure you are loading the helper in your controller or autoloading it if you use it often.

$this->load->helper('navigation_helper');

Then in your view you could do this:

<div id="menu">
    <ul>
        <?php foreach ($tabMenu as $item): ?>
            <?php echo build_list_item($item); ?>
        <?php endforeach; ?>    
    </ul>
</div>