Using Module Templates with Zend Framework

I've just finished watching some of the archived webinars related to Zend Framework over at Zend.com, and found some great information about rendering view output into a sitewide template in the MVC applications with Zend Framework webinar.

Since I'm currently developing a website with multiple modules, each having their own distinct look, I'd like to extend the examples provided in the webinar to allow specifying per-module templates. Here is what I came up with:

First, modify the example to add private member variables $_template and $_module and add a constructor that accepts and stores values for these variables.

class My_Plugin_RenderIntoTemplate extends Zend_Controller_Plugin_Abstract
{
  private $_template = null;
  private $_module   = null;
	
  public function __construct( $template, $module = 'default' )
  {
    $this->_template = $template;
    $this->_module   = $module;
  }

Next, modify the dispatchLoopShutdown() method in the example to add a check that returns immediately if the current module is not the module specified at instantiation time.

  public function dispatchLoopShutdown()
  {

    if( $this->_module != $this->getRequest()->module ) {
      return;
    }

    $view = Zend_Controller_Action_HelperBroker::getStaticHelper('viewRenderer')->view;
    if (empty($view)) {
      return;
    }

    $response      = $this->getResponse();
    $content       = $response->getBody();
    $view->content = $content;

    $response->setBody($view->render($this->_template));
  }
}

Finally, register instances of the plugin with the front controller in the bootstrap code:

// Set up the Front controller.
require_once 'Zend/Controller/Front.php';
$front = Zend_Controller_Front::getInstance( );

$front->addModuleDirectory( '../application/modules' )
      ->registerPlugin( new My_Plugin_RenderIntoTemplate( 'foo-template.phtml', 'foo' ) )
      ->dispatch( );

In my example, I am using the conventional modular directory structure as outline here. In this case, the script named in the plugin constructor should be located at the application/modules/foo/views/scripts/foo-template.phtml.

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