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Day 7: Playing with the Category Page

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Yesterday, you expanded your knowledge of symfony in a lot of different areas: querying with Propel, fixtures, routing, debugging, and custom configuration. And we finished with a little challenge to start today.

We hope you worked on the Jobeet category page as today will then be much more valuable for you.

Ready? Let's talk about a possible implementation.

The Category Route

First, we need to add a route to define a pretty URL for the category page. Add it at the beginning of the routing file:

# apps/frontend/config/routing.yml
category:
  url:      /category/:slug
  class:    sfPropelRoute
  param:    { module: category, action: show }
  options:  { model: JobeetCategory, type: object }

tip

Whenever you start implementing a new feature, it is a good practice to first think about the URL and create the associated route. And it is mandatory if you removed the default routing rules.

A route can use any column from its related object as a parameter. It can also use any other value if there is a related accessor defined in the object class. Because the slug parameter has no corresponding column in the category table, we need to add a virtual accessor in JobeetCategory to make the route works:

// lib/model/JobeetCategory.php
public function getSlug()
{
  return Jobeet::slugify($this->getName());
}

The Category Link

Now, edit the indexSuccess.php template of the job module to add the link to the category page:

<!-- some HTML code -->
 
        <h1>
          <?php echo link_to($category, 'category', $category) ?>
        </h1>
 
<!-- some HTML code -->
 
      </table>
 
      <?php if (($count = $category->countActiveJobs() - sfConfig::get('app_max_jobs_on_homepage')) > 0): ?>
        <div class="more_jobs">
          and <?php echo link_to($count, 'category', $category) ?>
          more...
        </div>
      <?php endif; ?>
    </div>
  <?php endforeach; ?>
</div>

We only add the link if there are more than 10 jobs to display for the current category. The link contains the number of jobs not displayed. For this template to work, we need to add the countActiveJobs() method to JobeetCategory:

// lib/model/JobeetCategory.php
public function countActiveJobs()
{
  $criteria = new Criteria();
  $criteria->add(JobeetJobPeer::CATEGORY_ID, $this->getId());
 
  return JobeetJobPeer::countActiveJobs($criteria);
}

The countActiveJobs() method uses a countActiveJobs() method that does not exist yet in JobeetJobPeer. Replace the content of the JobeetJobPeer.php file with the following code:

// lib/model/JobeetJobPeer.php
class JobeetJobPeer extends BaseJobeetJobPeer
{
  static public function getActiveJobs(Criteria $criteria = null)
  {
    return self::doSelect(self::addActiveJobsCriteria($criteria));
  }
 
  static public function countActiveJobs(Criteria $criteria = null)
  {
    return self::doCount(self::addActiveJobsCriteria($criteria));
  }
 
  static public function addActiveJobsCriteria(Criteria $criteria = null)
  {
    if (is_null($criteria))
    {
      $criteria = new Criteria();
    }
 
    $criteria->add(self::EXPIRES_AT, time(), Criteria::GREATER_THAN);
    $criteria->addDescendingOrderByColumn(self::CREATED_AT);
 
    return $criteria;
  }
 
  static public function doSelectActive(Criteria $criteria)
  {
    return self::doSelectOne(self::addActiveJobsCriteria($criteria));
  }
}

As you can see for yourself, we have refactored the whole code of JobeetJobPeer to introduce a new shared addActiveJobsCriteria() method to make the code more DRY (Don't Repeat Yourself).

tip

The first time a piece of code is re-used, copying the code may be sufficient. But if you find another use for it, you need to refactor all uses to a shared function or a method, as we have done here.

In the countActiveJobs() method, instead of using doSelect() and then count the number of results, we have used the much faster doCount() method.

We have changed a lot of files, just for this simple feature. But each time we have added some code, we have tried to put it in the right layer of the application and we have also tried to make the code reusable. In the process, we have also refactored some existing code. That's a typical workflow when working on a symfony project. In the following screenshot we are showing 5 jobs to keep it short, you should see 10 (the max_jobs_on_homepage setting):

Homepage

Job Category Module Creation

It's time to create the category module:

$ php symfony generate:module frontend category

If you have created a module, you have probably used the propel:generate-module. That's fine but as we won't need 90% of the generated code, I have used the generate:module which creates an empty module.

tip

Why not add a category action to the job module? We could, but as the main subject of the category page is a category, it feels more natural to create a dedicated category module.

When accessing the category page, the category route will have to find the category associated with the request slug variable. But as the slug is not stored in the database, and because we cannot deduce the category name from the slug, there is no way to find the category associated with the slug.

Update the Database

We need to add a slug column for the category table:

# config/schema.yml
propel:
  jobeet_category:
    id:           ~
    name:         { type: varchar(255), required: true }
    slug:         { type: varchar(255), required: true, index: unique }

Now that slug is a real column, you need to remove the getSlug() method from JobeetCategory.

Each time the category name changes, we need to compute and change the slug as well. Let's override the setName() method:

// lib/model/JobeetCategory.php
public function setName($name)
{
  parent::setName($name);
 
  $this->setSlug(Jobeet::slugify($name));
}

Use the propel:build --all --and-load task to update the database tables, and repopulate the database with our fixtures:

$ php symfony propel:build --all --and-load --no-confirmation

We have now everything in place to create the executeShow() method. Replace the content of the category actions file with the following code:

// apps/frontend/modules/category/actions/actions.class.php
class categoryActions extends sfActions
{
  public function executeShow(sfWebRequest $request)
  {
    $this->category = $this->getRoute()->getObject();
  }
}

note

Because we have removed the generated executeIndex() method, you can also remove the automatically generated indexSuccess.php template (apps/frontend/modules/category/templates/indexSuccess.php).

The last step is to create the showSuccess.php template:

// apps/frontend/modules/category/templates/showSuccess.php
<?php use_stylesheet('jobs.css') ?>
 
<?php slot('title', sprintf('Jobs in the %s category', $category->getName())) ?>
 
<div class="category">
  <div class="feed">
    <a href="">Feed</a>
  </div>
  <h1><?php echo $category ?></h1>
</div>
 
<table class="jobs">
  <?php foreach ($category->getActiveJobs() as $i => $job): ?>
    <tr class="<?php echo fmod($i, 2) ? 'even' : 'odd' ?>">
      <td class="location">
        <?php echo $job->getLocation() ?>
      </td>
      <td class="position">
        <?php echo link_to($job->getPosition(), 'job_show_user', $job) ?>
      </td>
      <td class="company">
        <?php echo $job->getCompany() ?>
      </td>
    </tr>
  <?php endforeach; ?>
</table>

Partials

Notice that we have copied and pasted the <table> tag that create a list of jobs from the job indexSuccess.php template. That's bad. Time to learn a new trick. When you need to reuse some portion of a template, you need to create a partial. A partial is a snippet of template code that can be shared among several templates. A partial is just another template that starts with an underscore (_).

Create the _list.php file:

// apps/frontend/modules/job/templates/_list.php
<table class="jobs">
  <?php foreach ($jobs as $i => $job): ?>
    <tr class="<?php echo fmod($i, 2) ? 'even' : 'odd' ?>">
      <td class="location">
        <?php echo $job->getLocation() ?>
      </td>
      <td class="position">
        <?php echo link_to($job->getPosition(), 'job_show_user', $job) ?>
      </td>
      <td class="company">
        <?php echo $job->getCompany() ?>
      </td>
    </tr>
  <?php endforeach; ?>
</table>

You can include a partial by using the include_partial() helper:

<?php include_partial('job/list', array('jobs' => $jobs)) ?>

The first argument of include_partial() is the partial name (made of the module name, a /, and the partial name without the leading _). The second argument is an array of variables to pass to the partial.

note

Why not use the PHP built-in include() method instead of the include_partial() helper? The main difference between the two is the built-in cache support of the include_partial() helper.

Replace the <table> HTML code from both templates with the call to include_partial():

// in apps/frontend/modules/job/templates/indexSuccess.php
<?php include_partial('job/list', array('jobs' => $category->getActiveJobs(sfConfig::get('app_max_jobs_on_homepage')))) ?>
 
// in apps/frontend/modules/category/templates/showSuccess.php
<?php include_partial('job/list', array('jobs' => $category->getActiveJobs())) ?>

List Pagination

From the second day's requirements:

"The list is paginated with 20 jobs per page."

To paginate a list of Propel objects, symfony provides a dedicated class: sfPropelPager. In the category action, instead of passing the job objects to the showSuccess template, we pass a pager:

// apps/frontend/modules/category/actions/actions.class.php
public function executeShow(sfWebRequest $request)
{
  $this->category = $this->getRoute()->getObject();
 
  $this->pager = new sfPropelPager(
    'JobeetJob',
    sfConfig::get('app_max_jobs_on_category')
  );
  $this->pager->setCriteria($this->category->getActiveJobsCriteria());
  $this->pager->setPage($request->getParameter('page', 1));
  $this->pager->init();
}

tip

The sfRequest::getParameter() method takes a default value as a second argument. In the action above, if the page request parameter does not exist, then getParameter() will return 1.

The sfPropelPager constructor takes a model class and the maximum number of items to return per page. Add the latter value to your configuration file:

# apps/frontend/config/app.yml
all:
  active_days:          30
  max_jobs_on_homepage: 10
  max_jobs_on_category: 20

The sfPropelPager::setCriteria() method takes a Criteria object to use when selecting the items from the database.

Add the getActiveJobsCriteria() method:

// lib/model/JobeetCategory.php
public function getActiveJobsCriteria()
{
  $criteria = new Criteria();
  $criteria->add(JobeetJobPeer::CATEGORY_ID, $this->getId());
 
  return JobeetJobPeer::addActiveJobsCriteria($criteria);
}

Now that we have defined the getActiveJobsCriteria() method, we can refactor other JobeetCategory methods to use it:

// lib/model/JobeetCategory.php
public function getActiveJobs($max = 10)
{
  $criteria = $this->getActiveJobsCriteria();
  $criteria->setLimit($max);
 
  return JobeetJobPeer::doSelect($criteria);
}
 
public function countActiveJobs()
{
  $criteria = $this->getActiveJobsCriteria();
 
  return JobeetJobPeer::doCount($criteria);
}

Finally, let's update the template:

<!-- apps/frontend/modules/category/templates/showSuccess.php -->
<?php use_stylesheet('jobs.css') ?>
 
<?php slot('title', sprintf('Jobs in the %s category', $category->getName())) ?>
 
<div class="category">
  <div class="feed">
    <a href="">Feed</a>
  </div>
  <h1><?php echo $category ?></h1>
</div>
 
<?php include_partial('job/list', array('jobs' => $pager->getResults())) ?>
 
<?php if ($pager->haveToPaginate()): ?>
  <div class="pagination">
    <a href="<?php echo url_for('category', $category) ?>?page=1">
      <img src="/legacy/images/first.png" alt="First page" title="First page" />
    </a>
 
    <a href="<?php echo url_for('category', $category) ?>?page=<?php echo $pager->getPreviousPage() ?>">
      <img src="/legacy/images/previous.png" alt="Previous page" title="Previous page" />
    </a>
 
    <?php foreach ($pager->getLinks() as $page): ?>
      <?php if ($page == $pager->getPage()): ?>
        <?php echo $page ?>
      <?php else: ?>
        <a href="<?php echo url_for('category', $category) ?>?page=<?php echo $page ?>"><?php echo $page ?></a>
      <?php endif; ?>
    <?php endforeach; ?>
 
    <a href="<?php echo url_for('category', $category) ?>?page=<?php echo $pager->getNextPage() ?>">
      <img src="/legacy/images/next.png" alt="Next page" title="Next page" />
    </a>
 
    <a href="<?php echo url_for('category', $category) ?>?page=<?php echo $pager->getLastPage() ?>">
      <img src="/legacy/images/last.png" alt="Last page" title="Last page" />
    </a>
  </div>
<?php endif; ?>
 
<div class="pagination_desc">
  <strong><?php echo count($pager) ?></strong> jobs in this category
 
  <?php if ($pager->haveToPaginate()): ?>
    - page <strong><?php echo $pager->getPage() ?>/<?php echo $pager->getLastPage() ?></strong>
  <?php endif; ?>
</div>

Most of this code deals with the links to other pages. Here are the list of sfPropelPager methods used in this template:

getResults(): Returns an array of Propel objects for the current page
getNbResults(): Returns the total number of results
haveToPaginate(): Returns true if there is more than one page
getLinks(): Returns a list of page links to display
getPage(): Returns the current page number
getPreviousPage(): Returns the previous page number
getNextPage(): Returns the next page number
getLastPage(): Returns the last page number

As sfPropelPager also implements the Iterator and Countable interfaces, you can use count() function to get the number of results instead of the getNbResults() method.

Pagination

Final Thoughts

If you worked on your own implementation in day 6 and feel that you didn't learn much here, it means that you are getting used to the symfony philosophy. The process to add a new feature to a symfony website is always the same: think about the URLs, create some actions, update the model, and write some templates. And, if you can apply some good development practices to the mix, you will become a symfony master very fast.

Tomorrow will be the start of a new week for Jobeet. To celebrate, we will talk about a brand new topic: automated tests.

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License license.

Day 7: Playing with the Category Page

The Category Route

The Category Link

Job Category Module Creation

Update the Database

Partials

List Pagination

Final Thoughts

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