Creating A Hello World For Joomla 15

Creating a Hello World Module for Joomla! 1.
A module is a lightweight and flexible extension that is used for page rendering. They are used for
small bits of the page that are generally less complex and are able to be seen across different
components.
You can see many examples of modules in the standard Joomla! install: - menus - Latest News -
Login form - and many more.
This tutorial will explain how to go about creating a simple Hello World module. Through this tutorial
you will learn the basic file structure of a module. This basic structure can then be expanded to
produce more elaborate modules.
File Structure
There are four basic files that are used in the standard pattern of module development: *
mod_helloworld.php - This file is the main entry point for the module. It will perform any necessary
initialization routines, call helper routines to collect any necessary data, and include the template
which will display the module output.
• mod_helloworld.xml - This file contains information about the module. It defines the files
that need to be installed by the Joomla! installer and specifies configuration parameters for
the module.
• helper.php - This file contains the helper class which is used to do the actual work in
retrieving the information to be displayed in the module (usually from the database or some
other source).
• tmpl/default.php - This is the module template. This file will take the data collected by
mod_helloworld.php and generate the HTML to be displayed on the page.
Creating mod_helloworld.php
The mod_helloworld.php file will perform three tasks:
• include the helper.php file which contains the class to be used to collect the necessary data
• invoke the appropriate helper class method to retrieve the data
• include the template to display the output.
The helper class is defined in our helper.php file. This file is included with a require_once statement:
require_once( dirname(__FILE__).DS.'helper.php' );
require_once is used because our helper functions are defined within a class, and we only want the
class defined once.
Our helper class has not been defined yet, but when it is, it will contain one method: getHello(). For
our basic example, it is not really necessary to do this - the “Hello, World” message that this
method returns could simply be included in the template. We use a helper class here to
demonstrate this basic technique.
Our module currently does not use any parameters, but we will pass them to the helper method
anyway so that it can be used later if we decide to expand the functionality of our module.
The helper class method is invoked in the following way:
$hello = modHelloWorldHelper::getHello( $params );
Completed mod_helloworld.php file
The complete mod_helloworld.php file is as follows:
<?php
/**
* Hello World! Module Entry Point
*
* @package Joomla.Tutorials
* @subpackage Modules
* @link http://dev.joomla.org/component/option,com_jd-
wiki/Itemid,31/id,tutorials:modules/
* @license GNU/GPL, see LICENSE.php
* mod_helloworld is free software. This version may have been modified pursuant
* to the GNU General Public License, and as distributed it includes or
* is derivative of works licensed under the GNU General Public License or
* other free or open source software licenses.
*/
// no direct access
defined( '_JEXEC' ) or die( 'Restricted access' );
// Include the syndicate functions only once

require_once( dirname(__FILE__).DS.'helper.php' );
$hello = modHelloWorldHelper::getHello( $params );

require( JModuleHelper::getLayoutPath( 'mod_helloworld' ) );
The one line that we haven’t explained so far is the first line. This line checks to make sure that this
file is being included from the Joomla! application. This is necessary to prevent variable injection
and other potential security concerns.
Creating helper.php
The helper.php file contains that helper class that is used to retrieve the data to be displayed in the
module output. As stated earlier, our helper class will have one method: getHello(). This method will
return the ‘Hello, World’ message.
Here is the code for the helper.php file:
<?php
/**
* Helper class for Hello World! module
*
* @subpackage Modules
* @license GNU/GPL, see LICENSE.php
* mod_helloworld is free software. This version may have been modified pursuant
* to the GNU General Public License, and as distributed it includes or
* is derivative of works licensed under the GNU General Public License or
* other free or open source software licenses.
*/
class modHelloWorldHelper
{
/**
* Retrieves the hello message
*
* @param array $params An object containing the module parameters
* @access public
*/
function getHello( $params )
{
return 'Hello, World!';
}
}
There is no rule stating that we must name our helper class as we have, but it is helpful to do this
so that it is easily identifiable and locateable.
More advanced modules might include database requests or other functionality in the helper class
method.
Creating tmpl/default.php
The default.php file is the template which displays the module output.
The code for the default.php file is as follows:
<?php // no direct access

defined( '_JEXEC' ) or die( 'Restricted access' ); ?>
<?php echo $hello; ?>
An important point to note is that the template file has the same scope as the mod_helloworld.php
file. What this means is that the variable $hello can be defined in the mod_helloworld.php file and
then used in the $hello file without any extra declarations or function calls.
Creating mod_helloworld.xml
The mod_helloworld.xml is used to specify which files the installer needs to copy and is used by the
Module Manager to determine which parameters are used to configure the module. Other
information about the module is also specified in this file.
The code for mod_helloworld.xml is as follows:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>

<install type="module" version="1.5.0">
<name>Hello, World!</name>
<author>John Doe</author>
<version>1.5.0</version>
<description>A simple Hello, World! module.</description>
<files>
<filename module="mod_helloworld">mod_helloworld.php</filename>
<filename>index.html</filename>
<filename>helper.php</filename>
<filename>tmpl/default.php</filename>
<filename>tmpl/index.html</filename>
</files>
<params>
</params>
</install>
You will notice that there are two additional files that we have not yet mentioned: index.html and
tmpl/index.html. These files are included so that these directories cannot be browsed. If a used
attempts to point their browser to these folders, the index.html file will be displayed. These files can
be left empty or can contain the simple line:
<html><body bgcolor="#FFFFFF"></body></html>
which will display an empty page.
Since our module does not use any parameters, this section is empty.
Conclusion
Module development for Joomla! is a fairly simple, straightforward process. Using the techniques
described in this tutorial, an endless variety of modules can be developed with little hassle.
Developing a ModelViewController Component Part 1
Introduction
The new framework in Joomla! 1.5 unleashes a great deal of power for developers. The code has
been completely overhauled and cleaned up. This tutorial will guide you through the process of
developing a component using this new framework.
The scope of this project will be to develop a simple Hello World! component. In future tutorials, this
simple framework will be built upon to show the full power and versatility of the MVC design pattern
in Joomla!
Requirements
You need Joomla! 1.5 or greater for this tutorial.
Introduction to ModelViewController
While the idea behind a component may seem extremely simple, code can quickly become very
complex as additional features are added or the interface is customized.
Model-View-Controller (herein referred to as MVC) is a software design pattern that can be used to
organize code in such a way that the business logic and data presentation are separate. The
premise behind this approach is that if the business logic is grouped into one section, then the
interface and user interaction that surrounds the data can revised and customized without having
to reprogram the business logic.
There are three main parts of an MVC component. They are described here in brief, but for a more
thorough explanation, please refer to the links provided at the end of this tutorial.
Model
The model is the part of the component that encapsulates the application’s data. It will often
provide routines to manage and manipulate this data in a meaningful way in addition to routines
that retrieve the data from the model. In our case, the model will contain methods to add, remove
and update information about the greetings in the database. It will also contain methods to retrieve
the list of greetings from the database. In general, the underlying data access technique should be
encapsulated in the model. In this way, if an application is to be moved from a system that utilizes
a flat file to store its information to a system that uses a database, the model is the only element
that needs to be changed, not the view or the controller.
View
The view is the part of the component that is used to render the data from the model in a manner
that is suitable for interaction. For a web-based application, the view would generally be an HTML
page that is returned to the data. The view pulls data from the model (which is passed to it from the
controller) and feeds the data into a template which is populated and presented to the user. The
view does not cause the data to be modified in any way, it only displays data retrieved from the
model.
Controller
The controller is responsible for responding to user actions. In the case of a web application, a user
action is (generally) a page request. The controller will determine what request is being made by
the user and respond appropriately by triggering the model to manipulate the data appropriately
and passing the model into the view. The controller does not display the data in the model, it only
triggers methods in the model which modify the data, and then pass the model into the view which
displays the data.
Joomla! MVC Implementation
In Joomla!, the MVC pattern is implemented using three classes:

<classname>JModel</classname>, <classname>JView</classname> and
<classname>JController</classname>. For more detailed information about these classes, please
refer to the API reference documentation (WIP).
Creating a Component
For our basic component, we only require five files:
• hello.php - this is the entry point to our component
• controller.php - this file contains our base controller
• views/hello/view.html.php - this file retrieves the necessary data and pushes it into the
template
• views/hello/tmpl/default.php - this is the template for our output
• hello.xml - this is an XML file that tells Joomla! how to install our component.
Creating the Entry Point
Joomla! is always accessed through a single point of entry: index.php for the Site Application or
administrator/index.php for the Administrator Application. The application will then load the
required component, based on the value of ‘option’ in the URL or in the POST data. For our
component, the URL would be:
index.php?option=com_hello&view=hello
This will load our main file, which can be seen as the single point of entry for our component:
components/com_hello/hello.php.
The code for this file is fairly typical across components.
<?php
/**
* @subpackage Components
* components/com_hello/hello.php
* @license GNU/GPL
*/
// no direct access
// Require the base controller
require_once( JPATH_COMPONENT.DS.'controller.php' );
// Require specific controller if requested

if($controller = JRequest::getWord('controller')) {
$path = JPATH_COMPONENT.DS.'controllers'.DS.$controller.'.php';
if (file_exists($path)) {
require_once $path;
} else {
$controller = '';
}
}
// Create the controller

$classname = 'HelloController'.$controller;
$controller = new $classname( );
// Perform the Request task

$controller->execute( JRequest::getVar( 'task' ) );
// Redirect if set by the controller

$controller->redirect();
?>
The first statement is a security check.
JPATH_COMPONENT is the absolute path to the current component, in our case

components/com_hello. If you specifically need either the Site component or the Administrator
component, you can use JPATH_COMPONENT_SITE or JPATH_COMPONENT_ADMINISTRATOR.
DS is the directory separator of your system: either ‘/’ or ‘\’. This is automatically set by the
framework so the developer doesn’t have to worry about developing different versions for different
server OSs. DS should always be used when referring to files on the local server.
After loading the base controller, we check if a specific controller is needed. In this component, the
base controller is the only controller, but we will leave this here for future use.
<classname>JRequest</classname>:getVar() finds a variable in the URL or the POST data. So if our

URL is index.php?option=com_hello>controller=controller_name, then we can retrieve our
controller name in our component using: echo
<classname>JRequest</classname>::getVar(’controller’);
Now we have our base controller ‘<classname>HelloController</classname>’ in

com_hello/controller.php, and, if needed, additional controllers like
‘<classname>HelloControllerController1</classname>’ in com_hello/controllers/controller1.php.
Using this standard naming scheme will make things easy later on:
‘{Componentname}{Controller}{Controllername}’
After the controller is created, we instruct the controller to execute the task, as defined in the URL:
index.php?option=com_hello&task=sometask. If no task is set, the default task ‘display’ will be
assumed. When display is used, the ‘view’ variable will decide what will be displayed. Other
common tasks are save, edit, new...
The controller might decide to redirect the page, usually after a task like ‘save’ has been
completed. This last statement takes care of the actual redirection.
The main entry point (hello.php) essentially passes control to the controller, which handles
performing the task that was specified in the request.
Creating the Controller
Our component only has one task - greet the world. Therefore, the controller will be very simple. No
data manipulation is required. All that needs to be done is the appropriate view loaded. We will
have only one method in our controller: display(). Most of the required functionality is built into the
JController class, so all that we need to do is invoke the JController::display() method.
The code for the base controller is:
<?php
/**
* @license GNU/GPL
*/
// no direct access
jimport('joomla.application.component.controller');
/**
* Hello World Component Controller
*
*/
class HelloController extends JController
{
/**
* Method to display the view
*
* @access public
*/
function display()
{
parent::display();
}
}
?>
The <classname>JController</classname> constructor will always register a display() task and

unless otherwise specified (using the registerDefaultTask() method), it will set it as the default task.
This barebones display() method isn’t really even necessary since all it does is invoke the parent
constructor. However, it is a good visual clue to indicate what is happening in the controller.
The <classname>JController</classname>::display() method will determine the name of the view

and layout from the request and load that view and set the layout. When you create a menu item
for your component, the menu manager will allow the administrator to select the view that they
would like the menu link to display and to specify the layout. A view usually refers to a view of a
certain set of data (i.e. a list of cars, a list of events, a single car, a single event). A layout is a way
that that view is organized.
In our component, we will have a single view called hello, and a single layout (default).
Creating the View
The task of the view is very simple: It retrieves the data to be displayed and pushes it into the
template. Data is pushed into the template using the <classname>JView</classname>::assignRef
method.
The code for the view is:
<?php
/**
* @license GNU/GPL
*/
// no direct access
jimport( 'joomla.application.component.view');
/**
* HTML View class for the HelloWorld Component
*
* @package HelloWorld
*/
class HelloViewHello extends JView

{
function display($tpl = null)
{
$greeting = "Hello World!";
$this->assignRef( 'greeting', $greeting );
parent::display($tpl);
}
}
?>
Creating the Template
Joomla! templates/layouts are regular PHP files that are used to layout the data from the view in a
particular manner. The variables assigned by the JView::assignRef method can be accessed from the
template using $this→{propertyname} (see the template code below for an example).
Our template is very simple: we only want to display the greeting that was passed in from the view:
<?php // no direct access

defined('_JEXEC') or die('Restricted access'); ?>
<h1><?php echo $this->greeting; ?></h1>
Wrapping It All Up Creating the hello.xml File
It is possible to install a component manually by copying the files using an FTP client and modifying
the database tables. It is more efficient to create a package file that will allow the Joomla! Installer
to do this for you. This package file contains a variety of information:
• basic descriptive details about your component (i.e. name), and optionally, a description,
copyright and license information.
• a list of files that need to be copied.
• optionally, a PHP file that performs additional install and uninstall operations.
• optionally, an SQL file which contains database queries that should be executed upon
install/uninstall
The format of the XML file is as follows:

<!DOCTYPE install SYSTEM "http://dev.joomla.org/xml/1.5/component-install.dtd">
<install type="component" version="1.5.0">
<name>Hello</name>

<creationDate>2007 02 22</creationDate>
<authorEmail>john.doe@example.org</authorEmail>
<authorUrl>http://www.example.org</authorUrl>
<copyright>Copyright Info</copyright>
<license>License Info</license>

<version>Component Version String</version>

<description>Description of the component ...</description>



<files folder="site">
<filename>hello.php</filename>
<filename>controller.php</filename>
<filename>views/index.html</filename>
<filename>views/hello/index.html</filename>
<filename>views/hello/view.html.php</filename>
<filename>views/hello/tmpl/index.html</filename>
<filename>views/hello/tmpl/default.php</filename>
</files>
<administration>

<menu>Hello World!</menu>


<files folder="admin">
<filename>admin.hello.php</filename>
</files>
</administration>
</install>
If you look closely you will notice that there are some files that will be copied that we have not
discussed. These are the index.html files. An index.html file is placed in each directory to prevent
prying users from getting a directory listing. If there is no index.html file, some web servers will list
the directory contents. This is often undesirable. These files have the simple line:
<html><body bgcolor="#FFFFFF"></body></html>
It will simply display a blank page.
The other file is the admin.hello.php file. This is the entry point for the admin section of our
component. Since we don’t have an admin section of our component, it will have the same content
as the index.html files at this point in time.
Contributors
• mjaz
• staalanden
Download
The component can be downloaded at: com_hello1.zip
Developing a ModelViewController Component Part 2 Adding a Model
Introduction
In the first tutorial of this series, creating a simple view-controller component using the Joomla! 1.5
CMS framework was demonstrated.
In the first tutorial, the greeting was hardcoded into the view. This doesn’t follow the MVC pattern
exactly because the view is intended to only display the data, and not contain it.
In this second part of the tutorial we will demonstrate how to move this out of the view and into a
model. In future tutorials we will demonstrate the power and flexibility that this design pattern
provides.
Creating the Model
The concept of model gets its name because this class is intended to represent (or ‘model’) some
entity. In our case, our first model will represent a ‘hello’, or a greeting. This is in line with our
design thus far, because we have one view (’hello’), which is a view of our greeting.
The naming convention for models in the Joomla! framework is that the class name starts with the
name of the component (in our case ‘hello’, followed by ‘model’, followed by the model name.
Therefore, our model class is called HelloModelHello.
At this point, we will only model one behaviour of our hello, and that is retrieving the greeting. We
will thus have one method, called getGreeting(). It will simply return the string ‘Hello, World!’.
Here is the code for our model class:
<?php
/**
* Hello Model for Hello World Component
*
* @license GNU/GPL
*/
// Check to ensure this file is included in Joomla!

defined('_JEXEC') or die();
jimport( 'joomla.application.component.model' );
/**
* Hello Model
*
*/
class HelloModelHello extends JModel
{
/**
* Gets the greeting
* @return string The greeting to be displayed to the user
*/
function getGreeting()
{
return 'Hello, World!';
}
}
You will notice a line that starts with jimport. The jimport function is used to load files from the
Joomla! framework that are required for our component. This particular statement will load the file
/libraries/joomla/application/component/model.php. The ‘.’s are used as directory separators and
the last part is the name of the file to load. All files are loaded relative to the libraries directory. This
particular file contains the class definition for the JModel class, which is necessary because our
model extends this class.
Now that we have created our model, we must modify our view so that it uses it to obtain the
greeting.
Using the Model
The Joomla! framework is setup in such a way that the controller will automatically load the model
that has the same name as the view and will push it into the view. Since our view is called ‘Hello’,
our ‘Hello’ model will automatically be loaded and pushed into the view. Therefore, we can easily
retrieve a reference to our model using the JView::getModel() method.
Our previous view code contained the lines:
$greeting = "Hello World!";
To take advantage of our model, we change this line to:
$model =& $this->getModel();

$greeting = $model->getGreeting();
The complete view now looks like:
<?php
/**
* Hello View for Hello World Component
*
* @license GNU/GPL
*/
// no direct access
jimport( 'joomla.application.component.view');
/**
* HTML View class for the HelloWorld Component
*
*/
class HelloViewHello extends JView

{
{
$model =& $this->getModel();
$greeting = $model->getGreeting();
$this->assignRef( 'greeting', $greeting );
}
}
?>
Adding the File to the Package
All that remains is to add an entry to the XML file so that our new model will be copied. The Joomla!
framework will look for our model in the models directory, so the entry for this file will look like (it
should be added to the site section):
<filename>models/hello.php</filename>
Our new hello.xml file will look like:

<name>Hello</name>

<filename>models/index.html</filename>
</files>
<administration>

in this section are copied from /admin/ in the package -->
</files>
</administration>
</install>
Conclusion
We now have a simple MVC component. Each element is very simple at this point, but provides a
great deal of flexibility and power.
Contributors
• staalanden
Download
Developing a ModelViewController Component Part 3 Using the Database
Introduction
In the first two tutorials, we showed you how to build a simple model-view-controller component.
We had one view which retrieved data from a model (which was created in the 2nd tutorial). In this
tutorial, we will be working with the model. Instead of the data being hard coded in the model, the
model will retrieve the data from a table in the database.
This tutorial will demonstrate how to use the JDatabase class to retrieve data from the database.
Retrieving the Data
Our model currently has one method: getGreeting(). This method is very simple - all it does is return
the hard-coded greeting.
To make things more interesting, we will load the greeting from a database table. We will
demonstrate later how to create an SQL file and add the appropriate code to the XML manifest file
so that the table and some sample data will be created when the component is installed. For now,
we will simply replace our return statement with some code that will retrieve the greeting from the
database and return it.
The first step is to obtain a reference to a database object. Since Joomla! uses the database for its
normal operation, a database connection already exists; therefore, it is not necessary to create your
own. A reference to the existing database can be obtained using:
$db =& JFactory::getDBO();
JFactory is a static class that is used to retrieve references to many of the system objects. More
information about this class can be found in the API documentation.
The method name (getDBO) stands for get DataBase Object, and is easy and important to
remember.
Now that we have obtained a reference to the database object, we can retrieve our data. We do this
in two steps: * store our query in the database object
load the result

Our new getGreeting() method will therefore look like:
function getGreeting()
{
$db =& JFactory::getDBO();
$query = 'SELECT greeting FROM #__hello';

$db->setQuery( $query );
$greeting = $db->loadResult();
return $greeting;
}
hello is the name of the table that we will create later, and greeting is the name of the field that
stores the greetings. If you are not familiar with SQL, it would be helpful to take a tutorial or a
lesson to get yourself up to speed. One such tutorial can be found at w3schools.
The $db→loadResult() method will execute the stored database query and return the first field of
the first row of the result. See JDatabase API reference for more information about other load
methods in the JDatabase class.
Creating the Installation SQL File
The Joomla! installer has built-in support for executing queries during component installation. These
queries are all stored in a standard text file.
We will have three queries in our install file: the first will drop the table in case it already exists, the
second will create the table with the appropriate fields, and the third will insert the data.
Here are our queries:
DROP TABLE IF EXISTS `#__hello`;
CREATE TABLE `#__hello` (

`id` int(11) NOT NULL auto_increment,
`greeting` varchar(25) NOT NULL,
PRIMARY KEY (`id`)
) ENGINE=MyISAM AUTO_INCREMENT DEFAULT CHARSET=utf8;
INSERT INTO `#__hello` (`greeting`) VALUES ('Hello, World!'),

('Bonjour, Monde!'),
('Ciao, Mondo!');
You might find the prefix on the table names rather odd. Joomla! will replace this prefix with the
prefix used by the current install. For most installs, this table will become jos_hello. This allows
multiple installs of Joomla! to use the same database, and prevents collisions with other
applications using the same table names (i.e. two applications might share a database, but might
both require a ‘users’ table. This convention avoids problems.)
We have specified two fields in our database. The first field is id, and is called the ‘primary key’. The
primary key of a database table is a field that is used to uniquely identify a record. This is often
used to lookup rows in the database. The other field is greeting. This is the field that stores the
greeting that is returned from the query that we used above.
We will save our queries in a file called install.utf.sql.
Creating the Uninstall SQL File
Though we might hope that people will never want to uninstall our component, it is important that if
they do, we don’t leave anything behind. Joomla! will look after deleting the files and directories
that were created during install, but you must manually include queries that will remove and tables
that have been added to the database. Since we have only created one table, we only need one
query:
DROP TABLE IF EXISTS `#__hello`;
We will save this query in a file called uninstall.utf.sql.
Updating our Install File
We need to change a few things in our install file. First, we need to add our two new files to the list
of files to install. SQL install file have to go in the admin directory. Second, we need to tell the
installer to execute the queries in our files on install and uninstall.
Our new file looks like this:

<name>Hello</name>

</files>
<install>
<sql>
<file charset="utf8" driver="mysql">install.sql</file>
</sql>
</install>
<uninstall>
<sql>
<file charset="utf8" driver="mysql">uninstall.sql</file>
</sql>
</uninstall>
<administration>

in this section are copied from /admin/ in the package -->
<filename>install.sql</filename>
<filename>uninstall.sql</filename>
</files>
</administration>
</install>
You will notice two attributes present on the <file> tags within the <install> and <uninstall>
sections: charset and driver. The charset is the type of charset to use. The only valid charset is utf8.
If you want to create install files for non-utf8 databases (for older version of MySQL), you should
omit this attribute.
The driver attribute specifies which database the queries were written for. Currently, this can only
be mysql, but in future versions of Joomla! there may be more database drivers available.
Conclusion
We now have a component that takes advantage of both the Joomla! MVC framework classes and
the JDatabase classes. You are now able to write MVC components that interact with the database
and can use the Joomla! installer to create and populate database tables.
Contributors
• staalanden
Download
Developing a ModelViewController Component Part 4 Creating an
Administrator Interface
Introduction
In the first three tutorials, we have developed a MVC component that retrieves its data from a table
in the database. Currently, there is no way to add data to the database except to do it manually
using another tool. In this tutorial, we will develop an administrator section for our component
which will make it possible to manage the entries in the database.
Creating the Basic Framework
The basic framework of the administrator panel is very similar to the site portion. The main entry
point for the administrator section of the component is admin.hello.php. This file is identical to the
hello.php file that was used in the site portion except the name of the controller it loads will be
changed to HellosController. The default controller is also called controller.php and this file is
identical to the default controller in the site portion, with the exception that the controller is named
HellosController instead of HelloController. This difference is so that JController will by default load
the hellos view, which will display a list of our greetings.
Here is the listing for admin.hello.php:
<?php
/**
wiki/Itemid,31/id,tutorials:components/
* @license GNU/GPL
*/
// no direct access
// Require the base controller
require_once( JPATH_COMPONENT.DS.'controller.php' );
// Require specific controller if requested

if($controller = JRequest::getWord('controller')) {
$path = JPATH_COMPONENT.DS.'controllers'.DS.$controller.'.php';
if (file_exists($path)) {
require_once $path;
} else {
$controller = '';
}
}
// Create the controller

$classname = 'HellosController'.$controller;
$controller = new $classname( );
// Perform the Request task

$controller->execute( JRequest::getVar( 'task' ) );
// Redirect if set by the controller

$controller->redirect();
?>
The view and model that we will start with is the hellos view and the hellos model. We will start with
the model.
The Hellos Model
The Hellos Model will be very simple. The only operation that we currently need is the ability to
retrieve the list of hellos from the database. This operation will be implemented in a method called
getData().
The JModel class has a built in protected method called _getList(). This method can be used to
simplify the task of retrieving a list of records from the database. We simply need to pass it the
query and it will return the list of records.
At a later point in time, we might want to use our query from within another method. Therefore, we
will create a private method called _buildQuery() which will return the query that will be passed to
_getList(). This makes it easier to change the query as well since it is localized in one place.
Therefore we need two methods in our class: getData() and _buildQuery().
_buildQuery() simply returns the query. It looks like:
/**
* Returns the query
* @return string The query to be used to retrieve the rows from the database
*/
function _buildQuery()
{
$query = ' SELECT * '
. ' FROM #__hello '
;
return $query;
}
getData() will obtain the query and retrieve the records from the database. Now it might happen
that we need to retrieve this list of data twice in one page load. It would be a waste to have to
query the database twice. Therefore, we will have this method store the data in a protected
property so that on subsequent requests it can simply return the data it has already retrieved. This
property will be called _data.
Here is the getData() method:
/**
* Retrieves the hello data
* @return array Array of objects containing the data from the database
*/
function getData()
{
// Lets load the data if it doesn't already exist
if (empty( $this->_data ))
{
$query = $this->_buildQuery();
$this->_data = $this->_getList( $query );
}
return $this->_data;
}
The completed model looks like:
<?php
/**
* Hellos Model for Hello World Component
*
* @license GNU/GPL
*/

jimport( 'joomla.application.component.model' );
/**
* Hello Model
*
*/
class HellosModelHellos extends JModel
{
/**
* Hellos data array
*
* @var array
*/
var $_data;
/**
* Returns the query
* @return string The query to be used to retrieve the rows from the database
*/
function _buildQuery()
{
$query = ' SELECT * '
. ' FROM #__hello '
;
return $query;
}
/**
* Retrieves the hello data
* @return array Array of objects containing the data from the database
*/
function getData()
{
// Lets load the data if it doesn't already exist
if (empty( $this->_data ))
{
$query = $this->_buildQuery();
$this->_data = $this->_getList( $query );
}
}
}
This file is saved as models/hellos.php.
The Hellos View
Now that we have a model to retrieve our data, we need to display it. This view will be fairly similar
to the view from the site section as well.
Just as our model was automatically instantiated in the site, so it is in the administrator. Methods
that start with get in the model can be accessed using the get() method of the JView class. So our
view has three lines: one to retrieve the data from the model, one to push the data into the
template, and one to invoke the display method to display the output. Thus we have:
<?php
/**
* Hellos View for Hello World Component
*
* @license GNU/GPL
*/

jimport( 'joomla.application.component.view' );
/**
* Hellos View
*
*/
class HellosViewHellos extends JView
{
/**
* Hellos view display method
* @return void
**/
{
JToolBarHelper::title( JText::_( 'Hello Manager' ), 'generic.png' );
JToolBarHelper::deleteList();
JToolBarHelper::editListX();
JToolBarHelper::addNewX();
// Get data from the model

$items =& $this->get( 'Data');
$this->assignRef( 'items', $items );
}
}
This file is saved as views/hellos/view.html.php.
The Hellos Template
The template will take the data pushed into it from the view and produce the output. We will display
our output in a simple table. While the frontend template was very simple, in the administrator we
will need a minimal amount of extra logic to handle looping through the data.
Here is our template:
<?php defined('_JEXEC') or die('Restricted access'); ?>

<form action="index.php" method="post" name="adminForm">
<div id="editcell">
<table class="adminlist">
<thead>
<tr>
<th width="5">
<?php echo JText::_( 'ID' ); ?>
</th>
<th>
<?php echo JText::_( 'Greeting' ); ?>
</th>
</tr>
</thead>
<?php
$k = 0;
for ($i=0, $n=count( $this->items ); $i < $n; $i++)
{
$row =& $this->items[$i];
?>
<tr class="<?php echo "row$k"; ?>">
<td>
<?php echo $row->id; ?>
</td>
<td>
<?php echo $row->greeting; ?>
</td>
</tr>
<?php
$k = 1 - $k;
}
?>
</table>
</div>
<input type="hidden" name="option" value="com_hello" />

<input type="hidden" name="task" value="" />
<input type="hidden" name="boxchecked" value="0" />
<input type="hidden" name="controller" value="hello" />
</form>
This template is saved as views/hellos/tmpl/default.php.
You will notice that our output is enclosed in a form. Though this is not necessary now, it will be
soon.
We have now completed the basic part of the first view. We have added five files to the admin
section of our component:
• admin.hello.php
• controller.php
• models/hellos.php
• views/hellos/view.html.php
• views/hellos/tmpl/default.php
You can now add these files to the XML install file and give it a try!
Adding Functionality
So far our administrator section is pretty useless. It doesn’t really do anything - all it does is display
the entries that we have in our database.
In order to make it useful, we need to add some buttons and links.
The Toolbar
You may have noticed the toolbar that appears at the top of other Joomla! component administrator
panels. Our component needs one as well. Joomla! makes this very easy to do. We will add buttons
Delete records, Edit records, and create New records. We will also add a title that will be displayed
on our toolbar.
This is done by adding code to the view. To add the buttons, we use static methods from the
Joomla! JToolBarHelper class. The code looks like:
JToolBarHelper::title( JText::_( 'Hello Manager' ), 'generic.png' );

JToolBarHelper::deleteList();
JToolBarHelper::editListX();
JToolBarHelper::addNewX();
These three methods will create the appropriate buttons. The deleteList() method can optionally
take up to three parameters - the first parameter is a string to display to the user to confirm that
they want to delete the records. The second is the task that should be sent with the query (the
default is ‘remove’), and the third is the text that should be displayed below the button.
The editListX() and addNewX() methods can each take two optional parameters. The first is the task
(which are by default edit and add, respectively), and the second is the text that should be
displayed below the button.
*You may have noticed the use of the JText::_ method in the template before
and here as well. This is a handy function that makes component translation
much easier. The JText::_ method will look up the string in your component
language file and return the translated string. If not translation is
found, it will return the string that you passed it. If you want to
translate your component into another language, all you have to do is
create a language file that will map the strings within the quotes to the
translated version of the string.
Checkboxes and Links
We now have buttons. Two of those buttons operate on existing records. But how do we know which
records to operate on? We have to let the user tell us. To do this, we need to add checkboxes to our
table so that the user can select certain records. This is done in our template.
In order to the add the checkboxes, we need to add an extra column into our table. We will add the
column in between the two that we already have.
In the header of the column, we will add a checkbox which can be used to toggle all the boxes
below it on or off:
<th width="20">
<input type="checkbox" name="toggle" value="" onclick="checkAll(<?php echo
count( $this->items ); ?>);" />
</th>
The Javascript checkAll function is a function that is built into the Joomla! base Javascript package
that provides the functionality that we want here.
Now we need to add the checkboxes into the individual rows. Joomla!’s JHTML class has a method,
JHTML::_(), which will generate our checkbox for us. We will add the following line to our loop:
$checked = JHTML::_( 'grid.id', $i, $row->id );
after the line:
Then we will add a cell in between the two that we already have:
<td>
<?php echo $checked; ?>
</td>
It can be cumbersome to have to check the box that we want to edit and then move up and click
the edit button. Therefore, we will add a link that it will go straight to the greeting’s edit form. We
will add the following line after the call to the JHTML::_() method to generate the link HTML:
$link = JRoute::_( 'index.php?option=com_hello>controller=hello>task=edit>cid[]='.

$row->id );
And we include the link in the cell showing the greeting text:
<td>
<a href="<?php echo $link; ?>"><?php echo $row->greeting; ?></a>
</td>
You will notice that this link points to the hello controller. This controller will handle the data
manipulation of our greetings.
If you recall from above, we had four hidden input fields at the bottom of our form. The first input
field was named ‘option’. This field is necessary so that we stay in our component. The second
input field was task. This form property gets set when one of the buttons in the toolbar is clicked. A
Javascript error will result and the buttons will not work if this input field is omitted. The third input
field is the boxchecked field. This field keeps track of the number of boxes that are checked. The
edit and delete buttons will check to ensure that this is greater than zero and will not allow the form
to be submitted if it is not. The fourth input field is the controller field. This is used to specify that
tasks fired from this form will be handled by the hello controller.
Here is the code for the completed default.php file:

<form action="index.php" method="post" name="adminForm">
<div id="editcell">
<table class="adminlist">
<thead>
<tr>
<th width="5">
<?php echo JText::_( 'ID' ); ?>
</th>
<th>
<?php echo JText::_( 'Greeting' ); ?>
</th>
</tr>
</thead>
<?php
$k = 0;
for ($i=0, $n=count( $this->items ); $i < $n; $i++)
{
?>
<tr class="<?php echo "row$k"; ?>">
<td>
<?php echo $row->id; ?>
</td>
<td>
<?php echo $row->greeting; ?>
</td>
</tr>
<?php
$k = 1 - $k;
}
?>
</table>
</div>

<input type="hidden" name="boxchecked" value="0" />
</form>
Our hellos view is now complete. You can try out the component now to see the results.
The component can be downloaded at: com_hello4a.zip
Getting Down and Dirty: Doing the Real Work
Now that the Hellos view is done, it is time to move to the Hello view and model. This is where the
real work will get done.
The Hello Controller
Our default controller just isn’t going to cut it when it comes to doing work - all it is capable of doing
is displaying views.
We need to be able to handle the tasks that we are launching from the Hellos view: add, edit and
remove.
Add and edit are essentially the same task: they both display a form to the user that allows a
greeting to be edited. The only difference is that new displays a blank form, and edit displays a
form with data already in it. Since they are similar, we will map the add task onto the edit task
handler. This is specified in our constructor:
/**
* constructor (registers additional tasks to methods)
* @return void
*/
function __construct()
{
parent::__construct();
// Register Extra tasks

$this->registerTask( 'add' , 'edit' );
}
The first parameter of JController::registerTask is the task to map, and the second is the method to
map it to.
We will start with handling the edit task. The controller’s job is fairly simple for the edit task. All it
has to do is specify the view and layout to load (the hello view and the form layout). We will also tell
Joomla! to disable the mainmenu while we are editing our greeting. This prevents users from
leaving unsaved records open.
Our edit task handler looks like:
/**
* display the edit form
* @return void
*/
function edit()
{
JRequest::setVar( 'view', 'hello' );
JRequest::setVar( 'layout', 'form' );
JRequest::setVar('hidemainmenu', 1);
parent::display();
}
The Hello View
The Hello view will display a form which will allow the user to edit a greeting. The display method if
the hello view has to do a few simple tasks:
• retrieve the data from the model
• create the toolbar
• pass the data into the template
• invoke the display() method to render the template
This becomes a bit more complicated because the one view handles both the edit and add tasks. In
our toolbar we want the user to know what whether they are adding or editing, so we have to
determine which task was fired.
Since we are already retrieving the record that we want to display from the model, we can use this
data to determine what task was fired. If the task was edit, then the id field of our record will have
been set. If the task was new, then it will not have been set. This can be used to determine if we
have a new record or an existing record.
We will add two buttons to the toolbar: save and cancel. Though the functionality will be the same,
we want to display different buttons depending on whether it is a new or existing record. If it is a
new record, we will display cancel. If it already exists, we will display close.
Thus our display method looks like this:
/**
* display method of Hello view
* @return void
**/
{
//get the hello
$hello =& $this->get('Data');
$isNew = ($hello->id < 1);
$text = $isNew ? JText::_( 'New' ) : JText::_( 'Edit' );
JToolBarHelper::title( JText::_( 'Hello' ).': <small><small>[ ' . $text.' ]
</small></small>' );
JToolBarHelper::save();
if ($isNew) {
JToolBarHelper::cancel();
} else {
// for existing items the button is renamed `close`
JToolBarHelper::cancel( 'cancel', 'Close' );
}
$this->assignRef('hello', $hello);
}
The Hello Model
Our view needs data. Therefore, we need to create a model to model a hello.
Our model will have two properties: _id and _data. _id will hold the id of the greeting and data will
hold the data.
We will start with a constructor, which will attempt to retrieve the id from the query:
/**
* Constructor that retrieves the ID from the request
*
* @access public
* @return void
*/
function __construct()
{
parent::__construct();
$array = JRequest::getVar('cid', 0, '', 'array');

$this->setId((int)$array[0]);
}
The JRequest::getVar() method is used to retrieve data from the request. The first parameter is the
name of the form variable. The second parameter is the default value to assign if there is no value
found. The third parameter is the name of the hash to retrieve the value from (get, post, etc), and
the last value is the data type that should be forced on the value.
Our constructor will take the first value from the cid array and assign it to the id.
Our setId() method can be used to set our id. Changing the id that our model points to will mean
the id points to the wrong data. Therefore, when we set the id, we will clear the data property:
/**
* Method to set the hello identifier
*
* @access public
* @param int Hello identifier
* @return void
*/
function setId($id)
{
// Set id and wipe data
$this->_id = $id;
$this->_data = null;
}
Finally, we need a method to retrieve our data: getData()
getData will check if the _data property has already been set. If it has, it will simply return it.
Otherwise, it will load the data from the database.
/**
* Method to get a hello
* @return object with data
*/
function &getData()
{
// Load the data
if (empty( $this->_data )) {
$query = ' SELECT * FROM #__hello '.
' WHERE id = '.$this->_id;
$this->_db->setQuery( $query );
$this->_data = $this->_db->loadObject();
}
if (!$this->_data) {
$this->_data = new stdClass();
$this->_data->id = 0;
$this->_data->greeting = null;
}
}
The Form
Now all that is left is to create the form that the data will go into. Since we specified our layout as
form, the form will go in a file in the tmpl directory of the hello view called form.php:
<form action="index.php" method="post" name="adminForm" id="adminForm">

<div class="col100">
<fieldset class="adminform">
<legend><?php echo JText::_( 'Details' ); ?></legend>
<table class="admintable">
<tr>
<td width="100" align="right" class="key">
<label for="greeting">
<?php echo JText::_( 'Greeting' ); ?>:
</label>
</td>
<td>
<input class="text_area" type="text" name="greeting" id="greeting"
size="32" maxlength="250" value="<?php echo $this->hello->greeting;?>" />
</td>
</tr>
</table>
</fieldset>
</div>
<div class="clr"></div>

<input type="hidden" name="id" value="<?php echo $this->hello->id; ?>" />
</form>
Notice that in addition to the input field, there is a hidden field for the id. The user doesn’t need to
edit the id (and shouldn’t), so we silently pass it along in the form.
Implementing the Functionality
So far, our controller only handles two tasks: edit and new. However, we also have buttons to save,
delete and cancel records. We need to write code to handle and perform these tasks.
Saving a Record
The logical next step is to implement the functionality to save a record. Normally, this would require
some switches and logic to handle various cases, such as the difference between creating a new
record (an INSERT query), and updating an existing query (an UPDATE query). Also, there are
complexities involved in getting the data from the form and putting it into the query.
The Joomla! framework takes care of a lot of this for you. The JTable class makes it easy to
manipulate records in the database without having to worry about writing the SQL code that lies
behind these updates. It also makes it easy to transfer data from an HTML form into the database.
Creating the Table Class
The JTable class is an abstract class from which you can derive child classes to work with specific
tables. To use it, you simply create a class that extends the JTable class, add your database fields as
properties, and override the constructor to specify the name of the table and the primary key.
Here is our JTable class:
<?php
/**
* Hello World table class
*
* @license GNU/GPL
*/
// no direct access
defined('_JEXEC') or die('Restricted access');
/**
* Hello Table class
*
*/
class TableHello extends JTable
{
/**
* Primary Key
*
* @var int
*/
var $id = null;
/**
* @var string
*/
var $greeting = null;
/**
* Constructor
*
* @param object Database connector object
*/
function TableHello( &$db ) {
parent::__construct('#__hello', 'id', $db);
}
}
?>
You will see here that we have defined our two fields: the id field and the greeting field. Then we
have defined a constructor, which will call the constructor of the parent class and pass it the name
of the table (hello), the name of the field which is the primary key (id), and the database connector
object.
This file should be called hello.php and it will go in a directory called tables in the administrator
section of our component.
Implementing the Function in our Model

We are now ready to add the method to the model which will save our record. We will call this
method store. Our store() method will do three things: bind the data from the form to the TableHello
object, check to ensure that the record is properly formed, and store the record in the database.
Our method looks like:
/**
* Method to store a record
*
* @access public
* @return boolean True on success
*/
function store()
{
$row =& $this->getTable();
$data = JRequest::get( 'post' );

// Bind the form fields to the hello table
if (!$row->bind($data)) {
$this->setError($this->_db->getErrorMsg());
return false;
}
// Make sure the hello record is valid

if (!$row->check()) {
return false;
}
// Store the web link table to the database

if (!$row->store()) {
return false;
}
return true;
}
This method gets added to the hello model.
The method takes one parameter, which is an associative array of data that we want to store in the
database. This can easily be retrieved from the request as will be seen later.
You will see that the first line retrieves a reference to our JTable object. If we name our table
properly, we don’t have to specify its name - the JModel class knows where to find it. You may recall
that we called our table class TableHello and put it in a file called hello.php in the tables directory. If
you follow this convention, the JModel class can create your object automatically.
The second line will retrieve the data from the form. The JRequest class makes this very easy. In this
case, we are retrieving all of the variables that were submitted using the ‘POST’ method. These will
be returned as an associative array.
The rest is easy - we bind, check and store. The bind() method will copy values from the array into
the corresponding property of the table object. In this case, it will take the values of id and greeting
and copy them to our TableHello object.
The check() method will perform data verification. In the JTable() class, this method simply returns
true. While this doesn’t provide any value for us currently, by calling this method we make it
possible to do data checking using our TableHello class in the future. This method can be overridden
in our TableHello class with a method that performs the appropriate checks.
The store() method will take the data that is in the object and store it in the database. If the id is 0,
it will create a new record (INSERT), otherwise, it will update the existing record (UPDATE).
Adding the Task to the Controller

We are now ready to add our task to the controller. Since the task that we are firing is called ‘save’,
we must call our method ‘save’. This is simple:
/**
* save a record (and redirect to main page)
* @return void
*/
function save()
{
$model = $this->getModel('hello');
if ($model->store()) {
$msg = JText::_( 'Greeting Saved!' );
} else {
$msg = JText::_( 'Error Saving Greeting' );
}
// Check the table in so it can be edited.... we are done with it anyway

$link = 'index.php?option=com_hello';
$this->setRedirect($link, $msg);
}
All we do is get our model and invoke the store() method. Then we use the setRedirect() method to
redirect back to our list of greetings. We also pass a message along, which will be displayed at the
top of the page.
frame|none|The message that was passed is displayed at the top of the page.
Deleting a Record
Implementing the Function in the Model

In the model, we will retrieve the list of IDs to delete and call the JTable class to delete them. Here it
is:
/**
* Method to delete record(s)
*
* @access public
* @return boolean True on success
*/
function delete()
{
$cids = JRequest::getVar( 'cid', array(0), 'post', 'array' );
$row =& $this->getTable();
foreach($cids as $cid) {
if (!$row->delete( $cid )) {
$this->setError( $row->getErrorMsg() );
return false;
}
}
return true;
}
We invoke the JRequest::getVar() method to get the data from the request, then we invoke the
$row→delete() method to delete each row. By storing errors in the model we make it possible to
retrieve them later if we so choose.
Handling the Remove Task in the Controller

This is similar to the save() method which handled the save task:
/**
* remove record(s)
* @return void
*/
function remove()
{
$model = $this->getModel('hello');
if(!$model->delete()) {
$msg = JText::_( 'Error: One or More Greetings Could not be Deleted' );
} else {
$msg = JText::_( 'Greeting(s) Deleted' );
}
$this->setRedirect( 'index.php?option=com_hello', $msg );

}
Cancelling the Edit Operation
To cancel the edit operation, all we have to do is redirect back to the main view:
/**
* cancel editing a record
* @return void
*/
function cancel()
{
$msg = JText::_( 'Operation Cancelled' );
$this->setRedirect( 'index.php?option=com_hello', $msg );
}
Conclusion
We have now implemented a basic backend to our component. We are now able to edit the entries
that are viewed in the frontend. We have demonstrated the interaction between models, views and
controllers. We have shown how the JTable class can be extended to provide easy access to tables
in the database. It can also be seen how the JToolBarHelper class can be used to create button bars
in components to present a standardized look between components.
Contributors
• staalanden
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Creating a Hello World Module for Joomla! 1.

The mod_helloworld.php file will perform three tasks:

The helper class method is invoked in the following way:

$hello = modHelloWorldHelper::getHello( $params );

The complete mod_helloworld.php file is as follows:

// Include the syndicate functions only once

$hello = modHelloWorldHelper::getHello( $params );

The code for the default.php file is as follows:

<?php // no direct access

The code for mod_helloworld.xml is as follows:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>

which will display an empty page.

You need Joomla! 1.5 or greater for this tutorial.

In Joomla!, the MVC pattern is implemented using three classes:

For our basic component, we only require five files:

• hello.php - this is the entry point to our component

• controller.php - this file contains our base controller

• views/hello/tmpl/default.php - this is the template for our output

The code for this file is fairly typical across components.

defined( '_JEXEC' ) or die( 'Restricted access' );

// Require the base controller

// Require specific controller if requested

// Create the controller

// Perform the Request task

// Redirect if set by the controller

The first statement is a security check.

JPATH_COMPONENT is the absolute path to the current component, in our case

<classname>JRequest</classname>:getVar() finds a variable in the URL or the POST data. So if our

Now we have our base controller ‘<classname>HelloController</classname>’ in

The code for the base controller is:

defined( '_JEXEC' ) or die( 'Restricted access' );

The <classname>JController</classname> constructor will always register a display() task and

The <classname>JController</classname>::display() method will determine the name of the view

The code for the view is:

defined( '_JEXEC' ) or die( 'Restricted access' );

class HelloViewHello extends JView

<?php // no direct access

• a list of files that need to be copied.

The format of the XML file is as follows:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>

It will simply display a blank page.

The component can be downloaded at: com_hello1.zip

Here is the code for our model class:

// Check to ensure this file is included in Joomla!

Our previous view code contained the lines:

$greeting = "Hello World!";

To take advantage of our model, we change this line to:

$model =& $this->getModel();

The complete view now looks like:

defined( '_JEXEC' ) or die( 'Restricted access' );

class HelloViewHello extends JView

Our new hello.xml file will look like:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>

The component can be downloaded at: com_hello2.zip

$db =& JFactory::getDBO();

load the result

$query = 'SELECT greeting FROM #__hello';

Here are our queries:

DROP TABLE IF EXISTS `#__hello`;