Zend - refactoring to include a form globally on site

Question

I currently have a search form in the search controller, so the only way I can get to it is through /search/. I have to refactor my code so that this search form appears not only in the Search Controller but also globally throughout the site.

( The code isnt exact as I had to retype some of it )

My class that extends Zend_Form is located in application/forms/forms/SearchForm.php:

class Form_SearchForm extends Zend_Form {

    public function init() {};

}

My search controller is something like..

class SearchController extends Zend_Controller_Action
{
    public function search() {
        $searchForm = new Form_SearchForm();
        $this->view->form = $searchForm;
    }
}

In my Bootstrap.php I have an autoloader for models:

protected function _initAutoload() {
    $autoLoader = Zend_Loader_Autoloader::getInstance();
    $resourceLoader = new Zend_Loader_Autoloader_Resource(
        array(
     'basePath' => APPLICATION_PATH,
     'namespace' => '',
     'resourceTypes' => array(
         'form' => array(
      'path' => 'forms',
      'namespace' => 'Form_',
         ),
         'model' => array(
      'path' => 'models/',
      'namespace' => 'Model_',
         ),
     ),
        )
    );

return $autoLoader;

}

I'm wondering where I can store my code so that globally the search form is generated in the view.

My global layout file is located in application/layouts/scripts/layout.phtml and currently spits out a dynamic content area:

<div id="main">
    <?php echo $this->layout()->content;?>
</div>

Should I just add the form to this layout.phtml or is there some generic controller I should use?

Edit: Sorry for not specifying this too, but what if for example I wanted to not include it for 1-2 special pages ( maybe an admin section ).. if I hardcoded it into layout.phtml it would still appear.. or should I serve a different layout file to say, an admin area?

Answer 1

1. You can create your Form in a Controller Plugin and add it to view vars somehow (by Zend_Controller_Front?), which are accessible in layout, too. But it's too complicated in current ZF version (or I'm too dumb)

2. You can make Form_SearchForm a singleton

   class Form_SearchForm ... {
        static function getInstance() {
             static $instance;
             if (!$instance)
                 $instance = new Form_SearchForm();
             return $instance;
        }
   }
   

   Now instead of creating new Form_SearchForm() just get it as

   $form = Form_SearchForm::getInstance();
   

3. You can put an instance of Form_SearchForm to the registry

4. I probably have missed a very cool a simple way :)

Answer 2

I would split it into a partial and a place holder.

in layout.phtml:

<?php if($searchForm = $this->placeHolder('searchForm'): ?>
  <?php echo $searchForm; ?>
<?php endif; ?>

then in your views you can call:

<?php $this->placeHolder('searchForm')->set($this->partial('search-from.phtml', 'search')); ?>

IF you wanted you could even make a search view helper that basically does the place holder call.

The Controller plugin would be better if you have more pages that dont need it than d though. I would still probably use placeholder though to accomplish it. That way you can easily override or append to it later on a view-by-view basis without calling anything on the front controller.

Answer 3

Creating a searchAction() is not good for performance because it requires a brand new dispatch cycle. If, and only if, you have very complex logic that justifies a separate action, you could create a Controller Plugin and add searchAction() to the ActionStack. If you are only instantiating/assigning the form or if you don't need the search form for every request, it's not an optimal solution.

---

Another possibility would be to instantiate and assign the form in the bootstrap. This kind-of breaks separation of concerns, but provides better performance.

protected function _initSearchForm()
{
    $this->bootstrap('view');

    $view = $this->getResource('view');
    $searchForm = new Form_SearchForm();

    $view->searchForm = $searchForm;
    return $searchForm;
}

---

Finally, my preferred solution would be a custom view helper:

<?php

class My_View_Helper_SearchForm extends Zend_View_Helper_Abstract
{
    public function searchForm()
    {
        $searchForm = new Form_SearchForm();
        return $searchForm;
    } 
}

For either of these solutions, you'd ideally output the form in your layout file to minimise duplication.

layout.phtml:

<?php echo $this->searchForm() ?>

And create an alternate layout admin.phtml for admin area pages. This gives you the flexibility to change the admin pages significantly when new requirements pop up.