Joomla! Documentation™

Joomla! 

3.x

Tutorial

Developing a MVC Component

Articles in This Series

1. Introduction
2. Developing a Basic Component
3. Adding a View to the Site Part
4. Adding a Menu Type to the Site Part
5. Adding a Model to the Site Part
6. Adding a Variable Request in the Menu Type
7. Using the Database
8. Basic Backend
9. Adding Language Management
10. Adding Backend Actions
11. Adding Decorations to the Backend
12. Adding Verifications
13. Adding Categories
14. Adding Configuration
15. Adding ACL
16. Adding an Install/Uninstall/Update Script File
17. Adding a Frontend Form
18. Adding an Image
19. Adding a Map
20. Adding AJAX
21. Adding an Alias
22. Using the Language Filter Facility
23. Adding a Modal
24. Adding Associations
25. Adding Checkout
26. Adding Ordering
27. Adding Levels
28. Adding Versioning
29. Adding Tags
30. Adding Access
31. Adding a Batch Process
32. Adding Cache
33. Adding a Feed
34. Adding an Update Server
35. Adding Custom Fields
36. Upgrading to Joomla4

This is a multiple-article series of tutorials on how to develop a Model-View-Controller Component for Joomla! Version.

Begin with the Introduction, and navigate the articles in this series by using the navigation button at the bottom or the box to the right (the Articles in this series).

Introduction

This tutorial is part of the Developing a MVC Component for Joomla! 3.2 tutorial. You are encouraged to read the previous parts of the tutorial before reading this.

Adding a model

In the Joomla framework, models are responsible for managing the data. The first function that has to be written for a model is a get function. It returns data to the caller. In our case, the caller will be the HelloWorldViewHelloWorld view. By default, the model named HelloWorldModelHelloWorld residing in site/models/helloworld.php is the main model associated to this view.

So let's have a quick look at the naming conventions with an example, since the naming convention are the actual magic, that make everything work:

The class HelloWorldViewHelloWorld resides in site/views/helloworld/view.html.php and will make use of the class HelloWorldModelHelloWorld in the file site/models/helloworld.php

So let's just assume we want to use an imaginary view fluffy, you would have to have:

The class HelloWorldViewFluffy which resides in site/views/fluffy/view.html.php. The view will make use of HelloWorldModelFluffy in the file site/models/fluffy.php. Note: the actual screen of the view: site/views/fluffy/tmpl/default.php is required as well to make this example work.

Breaking any of these bold conventions will lead to errors or a blank page.

So back to the actual implementation of the single classes:

With your favorite file manager and editor put a site/models/helloworld.php file containing:

site/models/helloworld.php

<?php
/**
 * @package     Joomla.Administrator
 * @subpackage  com_helloworld
 *
 * @copyright   Copyright (C) 2005 - 2015 Open Source Matters, Inc. All rights reserved.
 * @license     GNU General Public License version 2 or later; see LICENSE.txt
 */

// No direct access to this file
defined('_JEXEC') or die('Restricted access');

/**
 * HelloWorld Model
 *
 * @since  0.0.1
 */
class HelloWorldModelHelloWorld extends JModelItem
{
	/**
	 * @var string message
	 */
	protected $message;

	/**
	 * Get the message
         *
	 * @return  string  The message to be displayed to the user
	 */
	public function getMsg()
	{
		if (!isset($this->message))
		{
			$this->message = 'Hello World!';
		}

		return $this->message;
	}
}

The HelloWorldViewHelloWorld class asks the model for data using the get method of the JViewLegacy class:

site/views/helloworld/view.html.php

<?php
/**
 * @package     Joomla.Administrator
 * @subpackage  com_helloworld
 *
 * @copyright   Copyright (C) 2005 - 2015 Open Source Matters, Inc. All rights reserved.
 * @license     GNU General Public License version 2 or later; see LICENSE.txt
 */

// No direct access to this file
defined('_JEXEC') or die('Restricted access');

/**
 * HTML View class for the HelloWorld Component
 *
 * @since  0.0.1
 */
class HelloWorldViewHelloWorld extends JViewLegacy
{
	/**
	 * Display the Hello World view
	 *
	 * @param   string  $tpl  The name of the template file to parse; automatically searches through the template paths.
	 *
	 * @return  void
	 */
	function display($tpl = null)
	{
		// Assign data to the view
		$this->msg = $this->get('Msg');

		// Check for errors.
		if (count($errors = $this->get('Errors')))
		{
			JLog::add(implode('<br />', $errors), JLog::WARNING, 'jerror');

			return false;
		}

		// Display the view
		parent::display($tpl);
	}
}

Note: $this->get() is a member of JViewLegacy::get which is a proxy to get* methods of the default model where * is populated with the value of the first parameter passed to get()

Also modify your helloworld.xml file to indicate use of models and the new version:

helloworld.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<extension type="component" version="3.2.0" method="upgrade">

	<name>Hello World!</name>
	<!-- The following elements are optional and free of formatting constraints -->
	<creationDate>January 2014</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>0.0.4</version>
	<!-- The description is optional and defaults to the name -->
	<description>Description of the Hello World component ...</description>

	<update> <!-- Runs on update; New since J2.5 -->
		<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>
		<folder>models</folder>
	</files>

	<administration>
		<!-- Administration Menu Section -->
		<menu link='index.php?option=com_helloworld'>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

Content of your code directory

• helloworld.xml
• site/helloworld.php
• site/index.html
• site/controller.php
• site/views/index.html
• site/views/helloworld/index.html
• site/views/helloworld/view.html.php
• site/views/helloworld/tmpl/index.html
• site/views/helloworld/tmpl/default.xml
• site/views/helloworld/tmpl/default.php
• site/models/index.html
• site/models/helloworld.php
• admin/index.html
• admin/helloworld.php
• admin/sql/index.html
• admin/sql/updates/index.html
• admin/sql/updates/mysql/index.html
• admin/sql/updates/mysql/0.0.1.sql

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.

General Information

Contributors

• Christophe Demko
• Ozgur Aksu
• Lukas Meier
• Matt Thomas
• Scionescire

Prev: Adding a menu type to the site part

Next: Adding a variable request in the menu type