[Tutorial] Dynamic Layout in Laravel 4

Im going to share how to make a dynamic Controller layout in Laravel 4. This post is for those who might prefer Controller Layout templating instead of Blade.

1. Open your BaseController.php ( inside Controllers folder) and add a property into it

class BaseController extends Controller {

    /**
     * Setup the layout used by the controller.
     *
     * @return void
     */

    /*Set a layout properties here, so you can globally
      call it in all of your Controllers*/
    protected $layout = 'layouts.default';

    protected function setupLayout()
    {
        if ( ! is_null($this->layout))
        {
            $this->layout = View::make($this->layout);
        }
    }

}

the layouts.default refers to your View files. if you haven't created it, then go to Views, create new folder and files 'layouts/default.php' for example.

in that file (default.php) you can write your own layout, lets pretend you wrote :

2. Now you can call your layout inside your Controller like this

class HomeController extends BaseController {

    public function showHome()
    {   
        /*now you can control your Layout it here */
         $this->layout->title= "Hi I am a title"; //add a dynamic title 
         $this->layout->content = View::make('home');
    }

}

3. If you're going to make the content to be dynamic and you put it inside your default layout.

Now lets go to Views and create a file named 'myContent.php'. write codes inside it

      /*This how you Start a Section in a view*/
     View::startSection('content'); ?>
    
    

          
Halooo, im a dynamic content

     
 


 

Now go back to your default layout ( default.php) and edit the codes :

Now you can Call it inside your Controller :

..................................

    public function showContent()
    {   
         $this->layout->title= "Hi I am a content"; 
         $this->layout->content = View::make('myContent');
    }


...............................

And there you Go. Your Dynamic Layout ( non-blade templating) is ready.


Thank You.

Reference : http://laravel.com/docs/templates