Rendering a module inside a component

[bfalcao]

Hi guys,

I am using Joomla 1.5 RC3.
Now, I made a component where at a certain part I need to get and render a module (let's say "mod_helloword") inside of that frontend component.
How can that be done ? (logically using PHP code).

Thanks in advance.
Bruno

[infograf768]

Hope someone can help you but, in any case, switch to last SVN/nightly build or at least RC4 to go on testing.

[dkarlovi]

Now, I made a component where at a certain part I need to get and render a module (let's say "mod_helloword") inside of that frontend component.
How can that be done ? (logically using PHP code).

I'm rendering modules inside a module, you can do it like this:

Code: Select all

<?php
$zone = "user1";
$modules =& JModuleHelper::getModules($zone);
foreach ($modules as $module){
	echo JModuleHelper::renderModule($module);
}
?>

It's without chrome, but you'll manage from there.

[bfalcao]

Ok guys I think I discovered it.

Basically the code to load, for instance, the mod_login module inside a component should be something like:

Code: Select all

	$document	= &JFactory::getDocument();
	$renderer	= $document->loadRenderer('module');
	$params	= array('style'=>$style);

	echo $renderer->render(JModuleHelper::getModule('mod_login'), $params);

In this case I made the $params array with an example params index there called 'style', but you guys get the idea

Thanks mates!

[RobS]

There is a easier way:

Code: Select all

$module = &JModuleHelper::getModule('mod_module');
$html = JModuleHelper::renderModule($module);
echo $html;

[Danayel]

I could just be missing something here, but there seems to be a major problem with all of the above mentioned code.

And that is when you want to load a specific instance of a module which has multiple instances.

using :

Code: Select all

    $module = &JModuleHelper::getModule('mod_module');
    $html = JModuleHelper::renderModule($module);
    echo $html;

Will render a module using the parameters for the first instance created. This is especially apparent if you try for example to load 2 joomla menus. For arguments sake lets use Main Menu and User Menu.

If you try to render these using the JModuleHelper then you get both of them printing out the Main Menu.

There was a variation of it where you could pass in parameters, but I have tried every example given and tried at least 5 or 6 different ways to format the parameter list but it seems to just ignore them completely.

Is there a special way for entering the params for a module call or is there a way to call a module by the id that I am missing?

[RavenLife]

would like to know the answer to this too

[sastrugi]

Anyone know if there's a definitive answer to this?

Has @DAnayel missed something or is there something missing from the suggestions earlier in the thread.

I'd really like if people could post opinions; has it worked for you?? If so what did you do?


Thanks guys

[sastrugi]

Just a note to all to make sure that there's no confusing that my post in this thread wasn't because of a potential "conflict of interest" that I was somehow trying to hide from everyone.

First of all, you might notice that I've changed my account/avatar details ~ this change reflects something that is very, very new to me but I've been around here using this same user name for a long time.

Ninja Hosting has come about because I have a real and lasting interest in Joomla (and I am personally sick and tired of crap web hosts who don't know what they're doing!!). Anyhoo..

Secondly, from a personal [coding] interest point of view I am interested in seeing if there is a resolution to this issue?

Has anyone had any real success with the techniques variously outlined above?


...ps it would be great if I/we could let Dan know that he's missed something obvious


I've just noticed that there have been almost 600 reads of this thread, so there's quite a bit of interest out there.


Thanks. Party on Joomladudes

[huggyb]

Hi,
I too am interested in this as i am creating a component whereby i'd like to embed modules within it as necessary. I see the issue with using

Code: Select all

$module = &JModuleHelper::getModule('mod_module');

as it will not pick up a specific 'instance' of the module.
However, it is stated that it you can also load by real name e.g.

Code: Select all

$module = &JModuleHelper::getModule('Module Name');

which should get you a specific instance.
However, this then links to this topic http://forum.joomla.org/viewtopic.php?f=304&t=254805.
Here, it can be seen that the name passed to getModule() will never match that from the database as $custom will always be false if the module is prefixed mod_

From JModuleHelper::_load()

Code: Select all

for($i = 0; $i < $total; $i++)
{
    //determine if this is a custom module
    $file                    = $modules[$i]->module;
    $custom                  = substr( $file, 0, 4 ) == 'mod_' ?  0 : 1;
    $modules[$i]->user       = $custom;
    // CHECK: custom module name is given by the title field, otherwise it's just 'om' ??
    $modules[$i]->name       = $custom ? $modules[$i]->title : substr( $file, 4 );
    $modules[$i]->style      = null;
    $modules[$i]->position   = strtolower($modules[$i]->position);
}

Also, it will never be 'om' as $file is the module, it will be 'mod_module' without the 'mod_' prefix i believe?

I'm not entirely sure what the reference to a custom module serves here either as even if you create a custom module in the admin it has a modle type of 'mod_custom' so still has the 'mod_' prefix.

I'm not sure how much sense i'm making here, I'm hoping someone can tell me if i'm thinking correctly.

Cheers.

[bfalcao]

Ok guys I think I found the way to pass parameters inside the module.

The code to render the module would be:

Code: Select all

		   $document = &JFactory::getDocument();
		   $renderer = $document->loadRenderer('module');
		   
		   $Module = &JModuleHelper::getModule('mod_fmDataGrid');
		   
		   $Params = "param1=bruno\n\rparam2=chris";
		   $Module->params = $Params;
                                   echo $renderer->render($Module);

Now, on the module, you access both "param1" and "param2" parameters using:

Code: Select all

$params->getValue("param1");

Note that I wrote param1=bruno\n\rparam2=chris. You need this in order for the framework to detect 2 attributes.

Hope this helps !

[Danayel]

ooh good work around!

I will test this later today. If it works I will give you a free membership to my club. (or upgrade if you have one)

[bfalcao]

Well,Danayel, I think I will have the "Lifetime member" when I tell you that I just am developing the best datagrid that I know, that is phpmydatagrid 2007, as a Joomla module .

It will worth the Lifetime member for sure! LOL

It's unbelievable the power of this datagrid inside Joomla 1.5

I am developing it and will create a module package for all the Joomla community next week.

[juanparati]

bfalcao you are great!!!

Nice trick!!

I will bookmark you post!

[sgherzo]

hi all,
yes this workaround works but for a single rendered module,
i need to render the same module with different parameters in a cycle...

i tried to insert it in a cycle, for multiple views of the same module with different parameters, but the framewok shows always the last configured module.

anyone have encountered this problem?

:-(

[fikiland]

thank you guyz really nice share

[burek]

I've developed a more accurate way to get the desired module by its ID, instead of the title/params combinations.

The usual code to get a module (and display its html content inside a component) is of course:

Code: Select all

$module = &JModuleHelper::getModule('mod_module');
$module->params = '....'; // set params to select a specific instance of a module
$html = JModuleHelper::renderModule($module);
echo $html;

The problem with that approach is that different modules require different params, which makes this less general usage. Further more, with that approach, some modules don't like to be referenced with "mod_modulename", but rather with just "modulename" (for example mod_mainmenu or mod_custom). That's why I decided to make things a little bit more simple.

The ideal way (IMO) would be if we could just write something like:

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$module_id = 123;
$module = &JModuleHelper::getModule($module_id);

This way we would select the module we want directly, but that kind of function doesn't exist in the JModuleHelper class, unfortunately, so I had to make a workaround.

I checked the getModule() method and reduced it to just this:

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//------------------------------------------------------------------------------
function getModuleById($id) {
//------------------------------------------------------------------------------
	//$modules =& JModuleHelper::_load();
	$modules = MyLoadModules();
	$total = count($modules);
	for ($i = 0; $i < $total; $i++) {
		// Match the id of the module
		if ($modules[$i]->id == $id)
			return $modules[$i];
	}
	return null;
}
//------------------------------------------------------------------------------

And voila, I've got what I want, with one problem. The method JModuleHelper::_load(); was enumerating only modules that have the menuId equal to the current ItemId, resulting in a lot of modules being ignored. Hence, I've created a copy of that method, just commenting out the line that makes problems with ItemId stuff ($wheremenu) and named the method MyLoadModules().

So the final result is this:

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//------------------------------------------------------------------------------
function MyLoadModules() {
//------------------------------------------------------------------------------
	// this is the copy of the function JModuleHelper::_load()
	// with ItemId deleted from the SQL query

	global $mainframe, $Itemid;

	$user =& JFactory::getUser();
	$db =& JFactory::getDBO();

	$aid = $user->get('aid', 0);
	$modules = array();
	$wheremenu = isset( $Itemid ) ? ' AND ( mm.menuid = '. (int) $Itemid .' OR mm.menuid = 0 )' : '';

	$query = 'SELECT id, title, module, position, content, showtitle, control, params'
		. ' FROM #__modules AS m'
		. ' LEFT JOIN #__modules_menu AS mm ON mm.moduleid = m.id'
		. ' WHERE m.published = 1'
		. ' AND m.access <= '. (int)$aid
		. ' AND m.client_id = '. (int)$mainframe->getClientId()
//		. $wheremenu
		. ' ORDER BY position, ordering';

	$db->setQuery( $query );

	if (null === ($modules = $db->loadObjectList())) {
		JError::raiseWarning( 'SOME_ERROR_CODE', JText::_( 'Error Loading Modules' ) . $db->getErrorMsg());
		return false;
	}

	$total = count($modules);
	for($i = 0; $i < $total; $i++)
	{
		//determine if this is a custom module
		$file                    = $modules[$i]->module;
		$custom                 = substr( $file, 0, 4 ) == 'mod_' ?  0 : 1;
		$modules[$i]->user      = $custom;
		// CHECK: custom module name is given by the title field, otherwise it's just 'om' ??
		$modules[$i]->name        = $custom ? $modules[$i]->title : substr( $file, 4 );
		$modules[$i]->style        = null;
		$modules[$i]->position    = strtolower($modules[$i]->position);
	}
	return $modules;
}
//------------------------------------------------------------------------------
function getModuleById($id) {
//------------------------------------------------------------------------------
	// this is the copy of the function JModuleHelper::getModule()
	// with modified body to search for module by its id instead of title

	//$modules =& JModuleHelper::_load();
	$modules = MyLoadModules();
	$total = count($modules);
	for ($i = 0; $i < $total; $i++) {
		// Match the id of the module
		if ($modules[$i]->id == $id)
			return $modules[$i];
	}
	return null;
}
//------------------------------------------------------------------------------

That's basically it. Now you just select the module you want and render it or read its params or whatever you need to do with it:

Code: Select all

$module = getModuleById(123); // the ID of the module (123) we can see in the backend: Extensions - Modules
$module->params = "param1=john\n\rparam2=doe"; // delimited by "\n\r"
echo JModuleHelper::renderModule($module);

P.S. don't forget to add "jimport('joomla.application.module.helper');" at the top of your php script to include JModuleHelper class.

[palitre]

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