SimplePages CakePHP 1.3 plugin

The idea of this plugin is to provide the same features as the default PagesController of CakePHP, but stored in the database for easy editing.

1. Installation

1.1. Requirements

The plugin uses the Sluggable plugin, developed by Mariano Iglesias and packed as a plugin by Matthieu Sadouni

To install, copy the ‘sluggable’ directory to the app ‘plugins’ folder:

git clone git://github.com/msadouni/cakephp-sluggable-plugin.git sluggable

Or click ‘download’ and copy the content of the compressed file into a ‘plugins/sluggable’ folder.

1.2. Files

To install the files of the plugin itself, copy the ‘simple_pages’ directory to the app ‘plugins’ folder:

git clone git://github.com/kalt/simple-pages.git simple_pages

Or click ‘download’ and copy the content of the compressed file into a ‘plugins/simple_pages’ folder.

1.3. DB Table

Create the db table from the migration schema in plugins/simple_pages/config/schema/schema.php :

cake schema create -plugin simple_pages

2. Usage

2.1. View files

The following actions are available :

• index(): Lists all SimplePages
• view($slug): Returns data of the SimplePage $slug
• admin_index(): Lists all SimplePages
• admin_add(): Adds a SimplePage
• admin_edit($id): Edits the SimplePage $id
• admin_delete($id): Deletes the SimplePage $id

The only thing you need to do is to create the corresponding views in your app :

• index() → app/views/plugins/simples_pages/simple_pages/index.ctp
• view($slug) → app/views/plugins/simples_pages/simple_pages/view.ctp
• admin_index() → app/views/plugins/simples_pages/simple_pages/admin_index.ctp
• admin_add() → app/views/plugins/simples_pages/simple_pages/admin_add.ctp
• admin_edit() → app/views/plugins/simples_pages/simple_pages/admin_edit.ctp
• admin_delete() → no view needed

Index, view and admin_index data are in $data, admin_add and admin_edit use $this→data.

2.2. Session flash messages layouts

If you use Session flash messages layouts, you can define them in you app bootstrap :

// APP/config/bootstrap.php
Configure::write('SimplePages.flashLayouts', array(
	'success' => 'message_success',
	'notice' => 'message_notice',
	'error' => 'message_error',
));

2.3. Routes

The default routes to access the plugin actions are :

• /simple_pages/simple_pages/{action name} for index and view
• /admin/simple_pages/simple_pages/{action name without ’admin_’} for admin actions

We believe that the most convenient url to access the view action is /{page slug}, so we added a CakeRoute class to quickly configure the app Router class.

// APP/config/routes.php
App::import('Lib', 'SimplePages.routes/SimplePageRoute');
 
Router::connect(
	'/:slug', 
	array(
		'plugin' => 'simple_pages',
		'controller' => 'simple_pages', 
		'action'  => 'view',
	), 
	array(
		'routeClass' => 'SimplePageRoute',
		'pass' => array('slug')
	)
);

Note that it does not conflict with any other route with the same pattern, ‘:slug’. If no SimplePage with the url $slug is found, the Router goes on. All SimplePages slugs are cached to avoid performance hit.

2.4. Links

The links must be built this way :

echo $html->link("About us", array('plugin' => 'simple_pages', 'controller' => 'simple_pages', 'action' => 'view', 'slug' => 'about-us'));

Warning: you MUST change all the links in your app layouts by adding the key ‘plugin’ => null :

// APP/views/layouts/default.ctp
echo $html->link("Posts", array('plugin' => null, 'controller' => 'posts', 'action' => 'index'));

If you don’t change the layout links, they will be broken inside the’ index’ and ‘view’ views of the plugin.

3. Translations

For now the plugin is available in English and French. To add a language, translate the .pot file located at plugins/simple_pages/locale/simple_pages.pot and save it as /plugins/simple_pages/locale/{your locale}/simple_message.po or in your app locale folder.