More on helpers
This book's not really about delving into the guts of Li3 too much but I think this bears explaining. When we call this line:
<?php
// ...
return $this->_render(__METHOD__, 'link', compact('url', 'title'));
// ...
li3's method _render gets kicked off. There is a bit of code in there that finds some strings by going through all the handlers it "knows about":
<?php
// ...
if ($this->_context) {
foreach ($params as $key => $value) {
$handler = isset($options['handlers'][$key]) ? $options['handlers'][$key] : $key;
$params[$key] = $this->_context->applyHandler(
$this, $method, $handler, $value, $options
);
}
$strings = $this->_context->strings();
}
It finds the "link" string from the class lithium\template\helper\Html and uses that.
We can change it:
<?php
namespace app\extensions\helper;
use lithium\security\Auth;
class LoginLogoutControl extends \lithium\template\Helper {
protected $_strings = array(
'loginControl' => '<li><a href="{:url}">{:title}</a></li>',
);
public function link($loginUrl, $logoutUrl) {
if (Auth::check('admin')){
$url = $logoutUrl;
$title = 'Log out';
} else {
$url = $loginUrl;
$title = 'Admin log in';
}
return $this->_render(__METHOD__, 'loginControl', compact('url', 'title'));
}
}
?>
Now, we are no longer using the build in string "link", we've defined our own "loginControl". "loginControl" is not super fancy or anything, it simply has an additional <li /> tag wrapping it and loses the {:options} placeholder. Hopefully this demonstrates the concept!