Symfony2 CMF Project

Routing and navigation menu components

cmf.symfony.com

An introduction to the routing and menu components.

Symfony2 routing

determine controller to handle this request
parse url parameters
default: based on configured set of routes
- loaded from configuration files
- generated by bundles
does not support dynamic routes
does not scale to a large number of routes
in a cms, the user wants to define their urls

Symfony2 CMF routing concept

possible to separate content tree from navigation tree
navigation tree consists of references to the content tree
- multi site: f.e. desktop, tablet, phone ..
- multi language: f.e. english, french, german ..
reworking the navigation requires cloning the navigation tree
merge back into the production navigation tree once ready

Solution: First Take

catch-all route /{url} with requirement url: .*
one controller for all requests (but could forward based on content)
does not play nicely with other routes

navigation:
    pattern: "/{url}"
    defaults: { _controller: service.controller:indexAction }
    requirements:
        url: .*

Solution: Better

Custom router
- full flexibility
- lookup in database
Chain router
- to combine both routing concepts
- and along the way allow you to add your own routers

Chain Router

find router services by tagging
tries to match with each configured router
with priorities to control order
fully production-ready and complete

<service id="my_namespace.my_router"
         class="%my_namespace.my_router_class%">
    <tag name="router" priority="300" />
</service>

Doctrine Router: Match url

find route document by url from database
- provide implementation with PHPCR ODM
- but you can provide your own
route may explicitly specify controller
otherwise a controller resolver is used
redirection route (to other route or absolute url)

Doctrine Router: Controller Resolvers

find out which controller handles given content node
useful resolvers provided:

route specifies explicit template: use generic controller
map content type to controller
map content type to template and use generic controller

you can add your own resolvers

interface ControllerResolverInterface
{
    function getController(RouteObjectInterface $document,
                           array &$defaults);
}

Routing and Content

Doctrine Router: Generate

generate url from content being referenced by route

Menu

provide NodeInterface with PHPCR ODM documents
menu renderer: if MenuItem specifies content
- generate route from content
- determine active menu item from content in request
otherwise let standard menu renderer handle this entry
with PHPCR ODM, multi language menus are a breeze
- see MultilangMenuItem in Symfony2 CMF in the MultilangContentBundle

Routing and Content and Menu

Outlook

doctrine router works but further improvements are ongoing
- implement url parameters (github)
- and add _locale support
- decide on getRouteCollection (github)
pimp KnpMenu with breadcrumb twig function (github)

Conclusions

very flexible way to handle things
ready for simple projects
only missing url parameters to be fully ready
if you don't need the flexibility, just make menu, route and content the same class :-)

Github projects

CMF sandbox
Core Components including SymfonyCmfMenuBundle
Chain Routing and Doctrine Routing

Resources