Question

I’ve been having problems created modular reusable components in my Zend Framework app. In this case I’m not referring to Zend Framework modules but rather the ability to have a reusable MVC widgety thing if you like. The problems I’m having may be very particular to my implementation, but I’m completely happy to throw it out and start again if someone can point me in the right direction. Anyway, specifics and code will hopefully explain things better and even if what I’m doing is not the best way it should show what I’m trying to achieve:

A simple example is a Mailing List sign up form. I want to include this on several pages of the site which use different Controllers and this presents a few problems in how to process the data and return relevant messages. I don’t want to do either of the following as they really smell:

1. Create a base controller with the form processing in and extend (Bad)
2. Duplicate form processing code in relevant controllers (Even worse!)

The clean way to go feels to me to create a new Controller to process the mailing list form data, use a View Helper to easily output the form and relevant markup into the desired pages and then redirect back to the page where signup occurred once the form has been processed. However, I’d like to use the form validation provided by Zend_Form, which means I’d need to pass the form object back to the view helper somehow if validation fails but in the same request. I’m currently doing this by setting it as a variable on the view and then forwarding back to the previous page rather than redirecting, which is ok(ish). If validation is ok then I’d prefer to use a redirect back to the original page. I’m having trouble doing this though as I’d like to pass messages back to the component about the state of signup. Normally I’d use the FlashMessenger Action Helper, I could namespace it in this case so messages didn’t clash with other page data, but I can’t access it from within a View Helper. So currently I’m forwarding in this case too. I’d much prefer a redirect to prevent form resubmissions if a user refreshes the page and to keep the URL clean. I realise I essentially want to have a mini MVC dispatch process within a page and I think that’s what the action stack is for? I really don’t know much about this though and any pointers would be greatly appreciated. Here’s my current code:

Controller:

<?php
class MailingListController extends Zend_Controller_Action {

    public function insertAction() {
        $request = $this->getRequest();
        $returnTo = $request->getParam('return_to');

        if(!$request->isPost() || (!isset($returnTo) || empty($returnTo))) {
            $this->_redirect('/');
        }

        $mailingList = new Model_MailingList();
        $form = new Form_MailingList();

        $returnTo = explode('/', $returnTo);

        if($form->isValid($_POST)) {
            $emailAddress = $form->getValue('email_address');

            $mailingList->addEmailAddress($emailAddress);

            $this->view->mailingListMessages = $mailingList->getMessages();
            $this->view->mailingListForm = "";
        }
        else {
            $this->view->mailingListForm = $form;
        }

        $this->_forward($returnTo[2], $returnTo[1], $returnTo[0]);
    }
}

return_to is a string containing the current URI (module/controller/action), which is generated in the View Helper. I’d prefer to redirect inside the $form->isValid($_POST) block.

View Helper:

<?php
class Zend_View_Helper_MailingList extends Zend_View_Helper_Abstract {

    public function mailingList($form, $messages = "") {
        if(!isset($form)) {
            $request = Zend_Controller_Front::getInstance()->getRequest();
            $currentPage = $request->getModuleName() . '/' . $request->getControllerName() . '/' . $request->getActionName();

            $form = new Form_MailingList();
            $form->setAction('/mailing-list/insert');
            $form->setCurrentPage($currentPage);
        }

        $html = '<div class="mailingList"><h2>Join Our Mailing List</h2>' . $form;
        $html .= $messages;
        $html .= '</div>';

        return $html;
    }

}

Getting an instance of the Front Controller in the View Helper isn’t ideal but I’d prefer to encapsulate as much as possible.

If I have a form object where validation has failed I can pass it back into the helper to output with error messages. If I have some messages to render I can also pass them into the helper.

In my view scripts I’m using the helper like so:

<?=$this->mailingList($this->mailingListForm, $this->mailingListMessages);?>

If neither mailingListForm or mailingListMessages has been set on the view by MailingListController, it will output a new form with no messages.

Any help is greatly appreciated!

Answer 1

Using ajax seems to be an optimal way. View Action Helper is used only for the first load of the mailing form.

Controller

class MailingListController extends Zend_Controller_Action {

public function insertAction() {
    $request = $this->getRequest();

    $form = new Form_MailingList();

    if ($request->isPost()) {
        if ($form->isValid($request->getPost())) {
            $mailingList = new Model_MailingList();
            $emailAddress = $form->getValue('email_address');
            $mailingList->addEmailAddress($emailAddress);
            $form = $mailingList->getMessages();
        }
    }

    $this->view->form = $form;
}

}

view script insert.phtml

<?php echo $this->form; ?>

Form class

class Form_MailingList extends Zend_Form {

public function init() {
    //among other things
    $this->setAttrib('id', 'mailing-list-form');
    $this->setAction('/mailing-list/insert');
}

}

View Helper

class Zend_View_Helper_MailingList extends Zend_View_Helper_Abstract {

public function mailingList() {
    $this->view->headScript()->appendFile('/js/mailing-list.js');
    return '<div id="mailing-list-wrap">' . $this->view->action('insert', 'mailing-list') . '</div>';
}

}

JS file mailing-list.js

$(document).ready(function() {
    $('#mailing-list-form').submit(function() {
        var formAction = $(this).attr('action');
        var formData = $(this).serialize();

        $.post(formAction, formData, function(data) {
            //response going in form's parent container
            $(this).parent().html(data);
        });

        return false;
    });
});