[RESOLVED] help with folders in structure

[lerro]

I need help. I want to have a folder called "administrator" or similar and also a folder for "members" or similar.

There is a simple MVC framework i'm looking at but would like to know how i can achieve this

I want to have controlllers that deal with administration to be stored in the administration folder and controllers that deal with members to be stored in the members folder.

A user accesses the application via index.php which then calls up the right controller based on the url of the site as explained in the link i have provided.

But if i would like to create an administrator area whose views will be protected via logging in, rather than having all views laid out in one folder, how could i customise the code to have views in separate folders (administrator views separate, members views separate).

And also to easily manage controllers, having them in separate folders.

The MVC i'm referring to is here and it has full explanation and the code

http://www.phpro.org/tutorials/Model-View-Controller-MVC.html

[NogDog]

I do not know that particular MVC framework, but with those that I have used, the user access is controlled (appropriately enough) by the controller, not by the view. Typically for the admin controller I will have the admin user access control in the constructor method, then the index and other specific methods will not have to worry about it. With a framework such as CodeIgniter, you can have subdirectories for views, though that is just for organization purposes, not for access control.

[lerro]

Typically for the admin controller I will have the admin user access control in the constructor method, then the index and other specific

Thanks,

If using CodeIgnitor, how do i create an admin controller? Could you please give me an example of an admin controller with user access control in the constructor method?

The reason i ask is that for admin, there may be several functionalities, such as
- a controller that manages customers
- a controller that manages member accounts
- a controller that manages member groups

All these controllers need to be restricted to only be accessible by the admin
If i only had one admin controller, how do i get it to restrict access for other controllers since putting all functions of admin in the admin controller would make it unwieldy to manage, because each controller has its own add, edit, view functions.

Or did you mean that for each controller that i want to restrict access, i have to put an access control in the controller's constructor?

Also
In CodeIgniter, is it possible to have subdirectories for controllers? Just for organisational purposes so as to know and separate which controllers affect administrator and which controllers affect members?

[NogDog]

To be honest, I am not sure if you can have controller sub-directories. It may be possible by doing some tricks with the router, but I've never had reason to consider it. Remember also that a lot of the details of what the administrator can do might be handled in the models, where it is quite feasible to use sub-directories.

An example Admin controller might be something like:

<?php
class Admin extends Controller
{
   public function __construct()
   {
      parent::Controller();
      $this->load->libary('auth'); // user auth library
      if(!$this->auth->isLoggedIn() or !$this->auth->isAdmin())
      {
         $this->load->view('admin/login'); // view could be in sub-directory
         exit;
      }
   }

   public function index()
   {
      $this->load->view('admin/home');
   }

   public function view_user($id)
   {
      $this->load->model('admin/user');
      $data = $this->user->view($id);
      $this->load->view('user/data', $data);
   }

   // additional methods as needed for assorted admin actions....
}

[lerro]

Thanks for that.

Just one more question, i can get the controller to display a view, but how do i get a controller to process a $_POST coming from a view?

For instance, when you have a member, you can add, edit, view, delete.

So my initial plan was to have a controller named member with functions/methods;

function add
function view
function edit
function delete

each of these would create a new class object and call the appropriate function to execute the required action by passing the $_POST value to it as paramenters.

The challenge i had was when a view, say "add" is passed by the controller to the user to add a member, and is then submitted back to the controller, i believe the correct way would be to point to the controller in the form's action="controllername.php"

how do i set the controller to point the POST to the right function to add the member?
Given that if i have another POST for edit, and another POST for delete, the controller cannot know whether the POST being sent is for add, edit or delete.

This was also the additional challenge, if the admin controller has methods/functions "add_member" and then "add_equipment" that means $_POST cannot just be detected for one add/insert

That's why i had thought that it's easy to manage items in separate controllers such as
customer controller (with its add, edit, view delete functions/methods)
equipment controller (with its add, edit, view delete functions/methods)

and then have a way for admin to access both(and more), rather than have one admin controller with multiple add, edit, view, delete.

But the main question is, how to get $_POST from a view to be picked up by the desired function within the controller

[NogDog]

With CI, a typical way would be for the action to be "/admin/add_user" (or "/index.php/admin/add_user" depending on how you configured your install), which would then call the add_user() method within the Admin class. Within that method you could then access the $_POST array as you would with any form-handler, validate the form inputs, and then likely call a method from your "User" model to do the actual insert (or return an error on duplicate user ID, etc.).

PS: If you find CodeIgniter to be of possible interest, check out the two video tutorials at http://codeigniter.com/tutorials/.

[lerro]

Thanks for this