Pass item in custom button controller

[dformdotdk]

I feel this is mostly me missing some basic knowledge, but I'm struggling with this. I have created a view called cancelsubscription where I've added a custom button cancelSubscription that targets the controller function below. I know I should not echo anything in a controller, but it's just for testing - later it will update the database.

public function cancelSubscription() {
  echo '<pre>'; print_r($this); echo '</pre>';
}

However, when I press the button, the view changes from view=cancelsubscription&id=1&Itemid=964 to &view=mysubscriptions&Itemid=964 and the id is lost.

My question is: Why is the button creating this redirect when pressed, and how can I get the item object in the controller function?

I've seen this tutorial, but it didn't help me: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X6vyExgjMkU

[Llewellynvdm]

Try:

public function cancelSubscription() {
  echo '<pre>'; print_r($this); echo '</pre>';exit;
}

[dformdotdk]

Tried, but makes no difference in terms of the redirect. And just to be clear - the button is added to a custom site view.

[Llewellynvdm]

The redirection is not yet set, and so if the button and the function lines-up your script should die, with the print out.

Dealing with the redirect you will need to add some more code, like this to the controller method:

// Redirect to ....
$this->setRedirect(
	JRoute::_(
			'index.php?option=com_[[[component]]]......', false
	)
);

Then make sure the the Target Controller Method name is the same as the function name cancelSubscription, also make sure the dynamicGet relation to the view is corresponding to your Target. This means if your main dynamicGet is a list return set, then target list, if it is a single return set then single.

Let me see.... hmmm that should be all need to get this to work, I use it all the time.

[dformdotdk]

Thank you - now I understand how to control the redirect.

Getting the item id to the controller is another case. Looking at the $this object, I can see info about the view, itemid, task etc, but but I need to get the item id to the controller.

I've tried $id = JFactory::getApplication()->input->getInt('id'); and other variations without any luck.

Looking at the populateState function in the model, I see that the id is set:

// Get the itme main id
$id = $this->input->getInt('id', null);
$this->setState('cancelsubscription.id', $id);

Seems like I'm missing a link somewhere? - I really need to get a better understanding of MVC.

[dformdotdk]

I can add a hidden field with the id inside the view template, and retrieve than on submit, but that seems a bit "hackish" and not very elegant.

[dformdotdk]

Looking at the form action url for the view, the id is missing. If I manually override it in code, then I can get the id using $this->input->getInt('id', null); - so how can I affect the form action url and add the id to it? Seems it's all I need.

[dformdotdk]

Surely it's not the best solution, but a solution. I ended up writing to the Joomla session in my view.html.php file.

$session = JFactory::getSession();
$session->set('recordId', $this->item->id);

Then in my controller, I get the recordId using

$id = JFactory::getSession()->get('recordId');

I'm sure there is a better way, and something that is more elegant. Just don't know how.
But I don't want to add hidden form fields containing the id - that's easy to tamper with. Even though I'll implement checks before updating the database, I don't like it.

[Llewellynvdm]

You should get the form post like this:

// get the app object
$app = JFactory::getApplication();
$form = $this->input->get('jform', array(), 'ARRAY');
// check if the ID is not set and also not the GUID
if (!isset($form['id']))
{
	$form['id'] = $this->input->get('id', 0, 'INT');
}