Version compatibility
This recipe is compatible with eZ Publish 5.2 / 2013.07
Enhanced views for Content/Location
In some cases, displaying a content item/location via the built-in ViewController is not sufficient and will lead you to do many sub-requests in order to access different parameters.
Typical use cases are access to:
- Settings (either coming from
ConfigResolverorServiceContainer) - Current content's
ContentTypeobject - Current location's parent
- Current location's children count
- Main location and alternative locations for the current content
- etc…
In those cases, you may want to use your own controller to display the current content/location instead of using the built-in ViewController.
Description
This feature covers 2 general use cases:
- Lets you configure a custom controller with the configured matcher rules.
- Lets you override the built-in view controller in a clean way.
Matching custom controllers
This is possible with the following piece of configuration:
You can point to any kind of controller supported by Symfony (including controllers as a service).
The only requirement here is that your action method has a similar signature than ViewController::viewLocation() or ViewController::viewContent() (depending on what you're matching of course). However, note that all arguments are not mandatory since Symfony is clever enough to know what to inject in your action method. Hence you're not forced to mimic the ViewController's signature strictly. For example, if you omit $layout and $params arguments, it will be still valid. Symfony will just avoid to inject them in your action method.
Original ViewController signatures
Note
Controller selection doesn't apply to block_view since you can already use your own controller to display blocks.
Warning on caching
Using your own controller, it is your responsibility to define cache rules, like for every custom controller !
So don't forget to set cache rules and the appropriate X-Location-Id header in the returned Response object.
See built-in ViewController for more details on this.
Examples
Enriching built-in ViewController
This example shows how to use a custom controller to enrich the final configured view template. Your controller will here forward the request to the built-in ViewController with some additional parameters.
Always ensure to add new parameters to existing $params associative array, using + union operator or array_merge().
Not doing so (e.g. only passing your custom parameters array) can result with unexpected issues with content preview. Previewed content and other parameters are indeed passed in $params.
Using a custom controller to get full control
This example shows you how to configure and use your own controller to handle a location.
Always ensure to have $params argument and to add new parameters to it, using + union operator or array_merge().
Not doing so (e.g. only passing your custom parameters array) can result with unexpected issues with content preview. Previewed content and other parameters are indeed passed in $params.
Overriding the built-in ViewController
One other way to keep control on what is passed to the view is to use your own controller instead of the built-in ViewController.
Base ViewController being defined as a service, with a service alias, this can be easily achieved from your bundle's configuration:
Warning
Doing so will completely override the built-in ViewController! Use this at your own risk!
See also
5 Comments
Ivo Lukač
Do I need to set the configuration in ezpublish/config/ezpublish.yml file
Or there is a way to put it in the Bundle?
Jérôme Vieilledent
You can of course put it in a bundle, as explained here
.
And there are examples in the DemoBundle.
Ivo Lukač
Got it. Thanks!
Xavier Van Herpe
Shouldn't "viewLocation()" and "viewContent()" in this page be replaced with "viewLocationAction()" and "viewContentAction()" ?
Jérôme Vieilledent
Xavier Van Herpe: No, we just present the base ViewController method signatures here.