13 Feb

Finally a practical solution: Joomla with CakePHP together - JAKE

For all those who liked my previous post where we integrated Joomla and CakePHP together, will surely love this one. There were some problems and limitations with the previous system, the major one was - The users who are already running Joomla couldn't take advantage of Cake as the setup involved in changing paths and all. Thanks to Dr. Tarique Sani for suggesting me that.

Ok, so lets start with the setup. Here the concept is, to install CakePHP as any other Joomla component and lets not modify anything with the present setup of Joomla. This is how we will start writing our component, com_cake [You can skip this part if you are interested in getting ready to use component] :

1. Lets install CakePHP in '\components\com_cake' of Joomla directory.

2. As we did before, lets create triggers for Cake... which are actual part of the components too: cake.php and cake.html.php

Here is cake.php

PLAIN TEXT

PHP:

<?php
defined( '_VALID_MOS' ) or die( 'Restricted access' );
require_once($mainframe->getPath('front_html'));
$mainframe->setPageTitle("com_cake: Ultimate Joomla Component");
$joomla_path=dirname(dirname(dirname(__FILE__)));
// As this component (cakephp) will need database access, lets include Joomla's config file
require_once($joomla_path.'/configuration.php');
// Constants to be used later in com_cake
define(JOOMLA_PATH,$mosConfig_live_site);
define(DB_SERVER,$mosConfig_host);
define(DB_USER,$mosConfig_user);
define(DB_PASSWORD,$mosConfig_password);
define(DB_NAME,$mosConfig_db);
$controller=mosGetParam( $_REQUEST ,'module'); //option passed is treated as a controller in cake
$action=mosGetParam( $_REQUEST ,'task'); //task passed is treated as a controller in cake
$param=mosGetParam( $_REQUEST ,'id');
HTML_cake::requestCakePHP('/'.$controller.'/'.$action.'/'.$param);
?>

cake.html.php

PLAIN TEXT

PHP:

<?php
defined( '_VALID_MOS' ) or die( 'Restricted access' );
class HTML_cake {
function requestCakePHP($url)
{
$_GET['url']=$url;
require_once 'app\webroot\index.php';
}
}
?>

Edit Cake's database.php

PLAIN TEXT

PHP:

<?php
class DATABASE_CONFIG
{
var $default = array(
'driver' => 'mysql',
'connect' => 'mysql_connect',
'host' => DB_SERVER,
'login' => DB_USER,
'password' => DB_PASSWORD,
'database' => DB_NAME
);
}
?>

Ok, now we can see that URL like:
http://localhost/joomla/index.php?option=com_cake
will open Cake's homepage in Joomla layout. Make sure you have edited your default.thtml file so that CSS and HTML tags do not mess up.

http://localhost/joomla/index.php?option=com_cake&module=names&task=add
will call CakePHP's 'names' controller and 'add' function.
(Please dont confuse 'module' variable in URL with Joomla's module !!)
It will work great but we need even more. We also need scafollding/bake and more things which Cake can give... In my case, I loved baking than any other thing, so as to support bake process. Lets do next step.

3. Since Cake baked code uses helpers to output links, images or any other URL. So, lets hack Cake helper to output Joomla's URL in this formats:

index.php?option=com_cake&module=names&task=add
index.php?option=com_cake&module=names&task=index
index.php?option=com_cake&module=names&task=view&id=12

So, I wrote a small function for this, as we all love our HTML helper in Cake:
Write this function on bootstrap.php

PLAIN TEXT

PHP:

<?php
function reform_url($url)
{
$temp=explode('/',$url);
$controller=$temp[1];
$action=$temp[2];
$param=$temp[3];
$url=JOOMLA_PATH.'/index.php?option=com_cake&module='.$controller.'&task='.$action;
if($param)
$url=$url.'&id='.$param;
return $url;
}
?>

Now we need to integrate this function with the helper functions so that it takes input in same format but output Joomla URL.

Copy HTML Helper (html.php) to your views/helpers folder and edit the following functions:

PLAIN TEXT

PHP:

function url($url = null, $return = false) {
if (isset($this->plugin)) {
$base = strip_plugin($this->base, $this->plugin);
} else {
$base = $this->base;
}
if (empty($url)) {
return $this->here;
} elseif($url{0} == '/') {
$url=reform_url($url); //Lets change the URL
$output = $base . $url;
} else {
$url=reform_url($url); //Lets change the URL
$output = $base . '/' . strtolower($this->params['controller']) . '/' . $url;
}
return $this->output($output, $return);
}

Similar changes were done in HTML::link(), HTML::image() and Controller:flash()

PLAIN TEXT

PHP:

function flash($message, $url, $pause = 1) {
$this->autoRender = false;
$this->autoLayout = false;
$this->set('url', reform_url($this->base . $url));
$this->set('message', $message);
$this->set('pause', $pause);
$this->set('page_title', $message);
if (file_exists(VIEWS . 'layouts' . DS . 'flash.thtml')) {
$flash = VIEWS . 'layouts' . DS . 'flash.thtml';
} elseif ($flash = fileExistsInPath(LIBS . 'view' . DS . 'templates' . DS . "layouts" . DS . 'flash.thtml')) {
}
$this->render(null, false, $flash);
}

4. We are all done, and our Cake is waiting for us....!!!
I did one more mod so that you people can still bake on using bake.php... Edit com_cake\cake\scripts\bake.php and on starting lines add this:

PLAIN TEXT

PHP:

$joomla_path=dirname(dirname(dirname(dirname(dirname(__FILE__)))));
require_once($joomla_path.'/configuration.php');

Most of your small applications developed with Cake will still work with Joomla using this component, as we have modified the helpers too. You dont even have to change Cake's conding conventions to use this plus you can still use bake.php anytime.

You can download the component here.

See it in action:
CakePHP Homepage in Joomla
Names::index()
Names::add()

Please post your feedback if you like this, good feedback on my previous article inspired me to do this.. I will post more interesting stuff soon.

UPDATE - 16, Feburary: Mariano Iglesias is extending this project further. Here's the Jake Homepage

Thanks
- Max

28 Jan

Joining powers of two great systems: Joomla and CakePHP

9 Comments »

Articles, CakePHP, Latest Developments

The day I learned CakePHP, it started inspiring me for getting more and more out of it. Its custom hacks are pretty cool, and CakePHP is a complete framework in itself. However, like all other frameworks, it creates too much of work when we have to code some features again and again, like User-registration, a link manager, gallery and all.... Joomla does handle all this pretty well. So, after I saw Drake, I decided to write my same thing with Joomla as I like it as a CMS and it is used by us everyday.

I would like to thank Felix from ThinkingPHP the most, his research helped me a lot to do this.

Let's start with a nice fresh setup.

1) Download Fresh versions of Cake and Joomla
and install Cake first (for me its joomla_cake), Rename cakephp's /app/webroot/index.php to cakephp.php then install Joomla inside 'webroot' of Cake's directory.

So your directory structure will be like:
/app ---------/webroot -----------------/joomla's index.php with other files -----------------/cakephp.php (we will use this to triger Cake) /cake /vendors

Edit cakephp.php

PLAIN TEXT

PHP:

if(isset($_GET['url']) && $_GET['url'] === 'favicon.ico')
{
}
else
{
/* $Dispatcher= new Dispatcher ();
$Dispatcher->dispatch($url);*/
}

Now we have disabled page rendering if we include this 'cakephp.php' in any external application.

2) Lets Create Joomla Component which will trigger Cake. : Lets call it 'com_cake'. This will be our master component in Joomla which will be triggered in case of when any unidentified Joomla's component is called... Lets add this functionality first.. Edit Joomla's index.php:

PLAIN TEXT

PHP:

//Before Joomla initialize its mainframe, lets play...
// check missing component -- added before $mainframe is being initialized
//##########################
if (!file_exists( $mosConfig_absolute_path .'/components/'.$option ) )
$option='com_cake'; //set component to com_cake if a controller is not found.
//##########################
$mainframe = new mosMainFrame( $database, $option, '.' );

Lets get back to create the component:

/app ---------/webroot -----------------/components (Joomla's component dir) ------------------------/com_cake ----------------------------------/cake.html.php (trigger to cakephp) ----------------------------------/cake.php (calls trigger with required options) /cake /vendors
We have to follow Joomla conventions for this module...
Lets create these 2 files, cake.php and cake.html.php:

cake.html.php:

PLAIN TEXT

PHP:

defined( '_VALID_MOS' ) or die( 'Restricted access' );
class HTML_cake {
function requestCakePHP($url)
{
$_GET['url']=$url;
require_once 'cakephp.php';
ob_start();
$Dispatcher= new Dispatcher ();
$Dispatcher->dispatch($url);
}
}

cake.php: This file will judge which controller/action to pass in cakephp.

PLAIN TEXT

PHP:

defined( '_VALID_MOS' ) or die( 'Restricted access' );
require_once($mainframe->getPath('front_html'));
$mainframe->setPageTitle("Check this out");
global $database;
$controller=mosGetParam( $_REQUEST ,'option'); //option passed is treated as a controller in cake
$action=mosGetParam( $_REQUEST ,'task'); //task passed is treated as a controller in cake
HTML_cake::requestCakePHP('/'.$controller.'/'.$action);

3) Time to check its functioning:

www.myserver.com/joomla/index.php?option=names&task=add

1. $_GET['option'] is passed to Joomla's index.php. There it concluded that component called 'names' is not found, so lets pass it to 'com_cake'

2. Now we are in cake.php (com_cake), we will check what controller and action it is requesting, and trigger the 'requestCakePHP' function.

This will make Joomla to assume that component being called is 'com_cake', and task is 'names/add'. This task will be then passed to Cake as $_GET['url'].

And we're done...

I see baked code of Cake's model 'name' inside Joomla.

Currently, I have not created it to handle the function arguments... but if I found this to be more useful... I will continue the project. The next updates will be:

1. Better handling of function arguments.
2. Customization of CakePHP's helpers to make use of right path and more.
3. Utilization of some plugins

Thanks
-- Max aka Abhimanyu Grover

13 Jan

PNG issues with Internet Explorer

1 Comment »

Latest Developments

While designing a layout which involved a lot of PNG files, I figured out that transparent PNG in IE appears with a light blue ugly background.

This is how it appears in IE:
PNG file in IE

Solution:
The Javascript code: pngfix.js as specified here.

Pros & Cons

Pros:

Ignored as a comment in other browsers - it's only run by Windows IE.
Works with (X)HTML Strict & Transitional Doctypes
Does not break W3C validation
Lightweight and very easily deployed
Works with existing in-line or external CSS rules based on class or ID selectors
Works with old-style img align="left" or align="right" attributes
Runs after any existing Body Onload code
Works with imagemaps and input images using a special version

Cons:

Doesn't work in IE versions earlier than 5.5 - the AlphaImageLoader filter wasn't introduced until version 5.5. There is no cure for earlier versions.
Requires JavaScript to be enabled - the estimations for how many people choose not to use JS vary wildly. See note [1]
CSS backround PNGs not supported - experimentation revealed I could traverse the Stylesheets collection and use the AlphaImageLoader trick to replace all background-image attributes containing PNGs, but then background-repeat would not work, and anchors placed over non-transparent parts of the image were not clickable CSS rules for the PNG images based on the img selector are lost, but this is easily rectified by adding a class selector to your img rule such that img{..} becomes img,.png{..} - then add the attribute class="png" to each of your PNGs.