When delivering an application that will be administered by clients I found it best to keep them out of the source code. THis means that any options, any at all, should be editable from a frontend.  Site name, taglines and metadata are examples of such settings.  Any constants that will be changed (Oxy-moronic I know) can also go here.

The Problem

Letting your client edit  site_details.php just to change the site’s tagline ends up in 500 errors or the like.

The Solution

Implement a simple settings component that records simple key => value pairs.

• Model
• Controller
• View
• Using the Values in your Code

This allows them to tinker with any values you deem fit. For example the KEY ‘site_name’ could have a VALUE of ‘Charlie’s World’.

Implementation

The Settings Model

THe single method in the model will read only the values we care about for a particular controller and return them to that controller. To get an idea of how to call values from a controller read this article on my logical botcheck.

array( array(
‘required’ => array(‘rule’=>VALID_NOT_EMPTY,‘message’=>‘Must not be empty!'),
‘length’ => array( ‘rule’ => array(‘maxLength’, 20),‘message’=>‘That Key is a bit too long, keep it under 20 characters’ )
)), ‘value’ => array( array(
‘required’ => array(‘rule’=>VALID_NOT_EMPTY,‘message’=>‘Must not be empty!'),
‘length’ => array( ‘rule’ => array(‘maxLength’, 60),‘message’=>‘That Value is a bit too long, keep it under 60 characters’ )
)) );

function getBotcheckMinMax(){
	$min=0;
	$max=0;
	
	$full_result=$this->findAll(array('key like'=>'botcheck_%_difficulty'));
	
	
	foreach($full_result as $record){
        switch($record['Setting']['key']){
			
            case 'botcheck_min_difficulty':
            $min=$record['Setting']['value'];
            break;
			
			
            case 'botcheck_max_difficulty':
            $max=$record['Setting']['value'];
            break;
            default;
        }
	}
	$result=array('min'=>$min,'max'=>$max);
	//die($min.'--'.$max);
	return $result;
}	

} ?>

The Settings Controller

checkSession(4);

}



function index() {

	$this->Setting->recursive = 0;

	$this->set('settings', $this->paginate());

}



function view($id = null) {

	if (!$id) {

        $this->Session->setFlash(__('Invalid Setting.', true));

        $this->redirect(array('action'=>'index'));

	}

	$this->set('setting', $this->Setting->read(null, $id));

}



function add() {

	if (!empty($this->data)) {

        $this->Setting->create();

        if ($this->Setting->save($this->data)) {

            $this->Session->setFlash(__('The Setting has been saved', true));

            $this->redirect(array('action'=>'index'));

        } else {

            $this->Session->setFlash(__('The Setting could not be saved. Please, try again.', true));

        }

	}

}



function edit($id = null) {

	if (!$id && empty($this->data)) {

        $this->Session->setFlash(__('Invalid Setting', true));

        $this->redirect(array('action'=>'index'));

	}

	if (!empty($this->data)) {

        if ($this->Setting->save($this->data)) {

            $this->Session->setFlash(__('The Setting has been saved', true));

            $this->redirect(array('action'=>'index'));

        } else {

            $this->Session->setFlash(__('The Setting could not be saved. Please, try again.', true));

        }

	}

	if (empty($this->data)) {

        $this->data = $this->Setting->read(null, $id);

	}

}



function delete($id = null) {

	if (!$id) {

        $this->Session->setFlash(__('Invalid id for Setting', true));

        $this->redirect(array('action'=>'index'));

	}


	if ($this->Setting->del($id)) {

        $this->Session->setFlash(__('Setting deleted', true));

        $this->redirect(array('action'=>'index'));

	}

}

}?>

The Settings Views

These are standard CakePHP views and can be baked from the model above, no point in wasting precious bits on that.

Using the Settings Values in your Code

OK, so we can add, edit and delete all the settings we want. Using these values is as simple as calling them from another controller

Summary

The end result is a editable collections of Settings that can be used by various other pages or controllers. Well there you have it. A over simplified explanation of my Settings component. Feel free to ask questions.