Developing a MVC Component/Adding a menu type to the site part

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This tutorial is for Joomla! CMS Version(s)

Introduction[edit]

This tutorial is part of the Developing a Model-View-Controller (MVC) Component for Joomla!2.5 tutorial. You are encouraged to read the previous parts of the tutorial before reading this.

Abstract[edit]

Generally speaking, this article describes how to get a link on your joomla page to open a specific page of your component. This gets simply done by adding an xml file to your specific page into your view folder.

E.g.

site/views/helloworld/tmpl/

Contains your view page default.php that we want to open.

A file default.xml is placed next to this file with some xml. This makes joomla able to recognize the view file default.php as a menu item.

Adding a menu item type[edit]

In the Joomla framework, components are executed using menu items. If you go in the menu manager of your Joomla installation a HelloWorld menu item type does not yet exist. Adding this functionality is easy in Joomla. Simply put a site/views/helloworld/tmpl/default.xml file containing:

site/views/helloworld/tmpl/default.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<metadata>
	<layout title="COM_HELLOWORLD_HELLOWORLD_VIEW_DEFAULT_TITLE">
		<message>
			<![CDATA[COM_HELLOWORLD_HELLOWORLD_VIEW_DEFAULT_DESC]]>
		</message>
	</layout>
</metadata>

For the moment the strings won't be translated in the administrator interface. We will see in a later article how translation is performed.

Also modify your helloworld.xml file to indicate a new version:

helloworld.xml

<extension type="component" version="2.5.0" method="upgrade">

	<name>Hello World!</name>
	<!-- The following elements are optional and free of formatting constraints -->
	<creationDate>November 2009</creationDate>
	<author>John Doe</author>
	<authorEmail>john.doe@example.org</authorEmail>
	<authorUrl>http://www.example.org</authorUrl>
	<copyright>Copyright Info</copyright>
	<license>License Info</license>
	<!--  The version string is recorded in the components table -->
	<version>0.0.3</version>
	<!-- The description is optional and defaults to the name -->
	<description>Description of the Hello World component ...</description>

	<update> <!-- Runs on update; New in 2.5 -->
		<schemas>
			<schemapath type="mysql">sql/updates/mysql</schemapath>
		</schemas>
	</update>

	<!-- Site Main File Copy Section -->
	<!-- Note the folder attribute: This attribute describes the folder
		to copy FROM in the package to install therefore files copied
		in this section are copied from /site/ in the package -->
	<files folder="site">
		<filename>index.html</filename>
		<filename>helloworld.php</filename>
		<filename>controller.php</filename>
		<folder>views</folder>
	</files>

	<administration>
		<!-- Administration Menu Section -->
		<menu>Hello World!</menu>
		<!-- Administration Main File Copy Section -->
		<!-- Note the folder attribute: This attribute describes the folder
			to copy FROM in the package to install therefore files copied
			in this section are copied from /admin/ in the package -->
		<files folder="admin">
			<!-- Admin Main File Copy Section -->
			<filename>index.html</filename>
			<filename>helloworld.php</filename>
			<!-- SQL files section -->
			<folder>sql</folder>
		</files>
	</administration>

</extension>

Packaging the component[edit]

Content of your code directory

Selecting the Menu Item Type

Create a compressed file of this directory or directly download the archive and install it using the extension manager of Joomla. You can add a menu item of this component using the menu manager in the backend. To do so select "Add New Menu Item" from the one of the menus in the "Menus" menu; then you can select COM_HELLOWORLD_HELLOWORLD_VIEW_DEFAULT_TITLE for Menu Item Type. Once selected you can see the Link information is populated with the URL for the view.

Navigate[edit]

Prev: Adding a view to the site part Next: Adding a model to the site part

Contributors[edit]

Archived